I've talked about this at various points before, but the BBC has a new piece on the history of penalty shoot outs here. While shoot outs are often referred to by pundits as a lottery, they aren't random - rather, they are a test of skill and nerve.
Ironically, shoot outs were introduced to replace lotteries, such as coin flips. The article linked above credits the idea to Michael Almog (later Israeli FA chief), quoting him as describing the drawing of lots as "an immoral and even cruel system for the losing team and not honourable for the winner".
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