I can’t really complain about going home to Chicago last week for Thanksgiving Break. I ate a ton of food, got even more sleep, saw my high school friends and set what is likely a world record for most episodes of “The Office” watched in one week.

There was, however, one sad note — the break was the longest stretch of time I had ever gone without attending a Cardinal athletic event.

To make matters worse, my 10 days in Chicago coincided with four home victories over Cal. FOUR!

Men’s and women’s soccer, women’s volleyball and men’s water polo all dispatched their counterparts from the school we love to hate, in games played right here on our campus. The water polo game even went into sudden death overtime, and the women’s soccer game ended on penalty kicks.

And I missed it all. I would have punched myself if I hadn’t been too busy eating turkey.

Although I would have loved to have seen any of the victories, I think the penalty shootout would have been the most exciting. Nothing against sudden death water polo, but there is almost nothing quite as dramatic as a one-on-one showdown between the shooter and the keeper, at least in my soccer-crazy mind.

This drama is not free, though. Sadly, it comes at the cost of almost every other important aspect of the “beautiful game” — passing, dribbling, defending, heading, positioning . . . you name it, shootouts don’t have it. Ending a game on penalty kicks whittles the entire sport down to two aspects: the shooting ability of one player, and the stopping ability of another.

So, almost regrettably, I think it’s time to scrap the dramatic, exciting, climactic penalty shootout.

Almost every other sport plays out its tied games with unlimited overtimes. Basketball does not use free throw contests to decide winners. Baseball has never resorted to home run contests. Football doesn’t bring on the kickers to see who can kick the longer field goal. The list goes on.

One other sport that does use a shootout is ice hockey. Interestingly though, shootouts are only used in the NHL’s regular season, while in the playoffs games are decided with unlimited overtimes. This is almost the opposite of soccer. In college, as in pro leagues around the world, regular season games can end in a draw. But in tournaments, if a match is still tied after two overtime periods, it is then decided by what many have called a “gimmick.”

Aside from ignoring many of the sport’s crucial facets, shootouts can often promote undeserving winners (not to say that this was the case in last weekend’s game). Soccer is already an immensely frustrating game. Because of the low scores, a team can often convincingly outplay their opponent and still lose. A shootout only further enables that possibility.

While a shootout does involve skill, the luck factor is increased. In many cases it is just guesswork — pick a side to either shoot at or dive towards and hope for the best. Besides that, a team that is being outplayed can just pack it in on defense during a tied game, knowing that their chances of victory are much higher in a shootout.

Taking this into account, the excitement of the penalty shootout must be sacrificed for the actual game of soccer. Actually, sacrificed is probably too strong of a word. How could sudden death soccer not be exciting, when every trip down the pitch could end in a game-winning goal? In college, overtimes are already sudden death (or golden goal, as they are called). Why not just play until a goal is scored, no matter how long it takes, the way it’s done in hockey playoffs?

In many pro tournaments the two overtimes are not golden goal, and that’s fine, but if the score is still tied at the end of those two, why not play a third overtime (and as many others as necessary) that is golden goal? These competitions often have limited substitutions as well, so I would suggest making the substitutions unlimited in overtime, to avoid the players getting too fatigued.

These solutions seem so obvious, yet penalty shootouts still exist. Yes, shootouts can add some excitement and also ensure the matches don’t run too long. But it still seems to me that the game’s rule makers must have forgotten what their old coaches no doubt preached, as I have heard from every soccer coach (not to mention every basketball, baseball and football coach as well) I have ever had: it’s a team game.

So instead of having games be won and lost by individuals, let’s have the teams do the deciding.

Sam Svoboda isn’t American; he cares way too much about soccer. Contact him at ssvoboda@stanford.edu.