No, for two reasons:
* There is no direct physical connection within the run of play from foul to goal scored. The awarding of a penalty kick, while obviously an offensive advantage in its own right, creates an entirely different set of circumstances vis-a-vis what the goalkeeper does and what the penalty kicker does than the run-of-play incident that precipitated it. IOW, the causation link is broken when the referee whistles the play dead.
* Assists are based upon positive plays by the assister (i.e., setup passes), rather than negative plays by an opposing player. In other words, credit has to be earned by the offensive player, not given away by the defensive player. That's why 5.1 of the NCAA soccer statisticians' manual says:
A player is credited with an assist when he makes, in
the opinion of the statistician, a pass contributing directly to a goal.
The same principle is at work in 5.7:
A player is not credited with an assist if that player’s
possession is terminated by an opposing defender’s tackle.
A.R. 5. Adams dribbles down the middle. Bartlett’s slide
tackle knocks the ball toward Aristotle, who then scores.
RULING: No assist is given. It was not Adams’ intent to pass
the ball, nor to score. Rather, the ball was simply knocked
away by the defender.
Referring back to Dave McHugh's earlier post, 5.7 is about intent
and causation. And in this case, the causation leading to the goal was a defensive mistake (or an accident of physics, if you prefer) rather than a positive play by the attacker that should be statistically rewarded with an assist.
