Richard Epstein — whom I believe, if memory serves me, is quite persuasive when it comes to articulating the reasons why the common law has evolved towards greater and greater efficiency over time — is apparently unwilling to extend that line of reasoning to the rules of soccer. He’s got some suggestions for changing the rules to make “transform a flawed game.” It’s an interesting and little-remarked-upon phenomena surrounding the spread of soccerphilia in the U.S.; Americans, I have found, are remarkably free with their suggestions, once they get a taste of the beautiful game, for measures that should be taken to make it better. Every four years, I hear from friends how if they only made the goal bigger, or got rid of the offside rule, well, then it would really be fun to watch . . .
I don’t mean to be unfair to Prof. Epstein — perhaps his suggestions (two points for a goal from the run of play, 1 for a penalty kick goal; and a hockey-like system for penalties to replace the red card/yellow card scheme) come from long study and deep understanding of the game. But I suspect not. The proposals would quite fundamentally alter a game that — lest we forget — two or three billion people are currently in love with. Hmm. It takes a lot of confidence — or chutzpah — to come in and say: I have figured out a way to make this better.
[Thanks to ajr13 for the pointer]
Patent Lawyer says:
U.S. professional indoor soccer teams used this kind of system for a while–1 point for penalty kick goals, 2 for a regular goal, 3 for a goal from long range, and time-out penalties for yellow and red cards (as well as new blue cards). It didn’t much help their popularity, but then, like arena football, very few people knew of its existence. I always thought the indoor soccer games, on a smaller field with 5 players + goalie per side, and significantly higher scoring, were a lot more fun to watch than international soccer.
June 17, 2010, 9:14 amCalderon says:
Football (and I mean real football, the kind where people don’t flop on the ground and fake injuries) is extremely popular in the US. Yet commentators and fans often make suggestions about how to improve the game, and in fact the NFL frequently makes significant changes to the rules. In the last decade, these have included 2-point tries and rules on illegal contact with receivers, and the changes to overtime starting next year. In short, I don’t think making suggestions is unique to soccuer.
June 17, 2010, 9:23 amRicardo says:
On the other hand, the introduction of Twenty20 cricket appears to have been hugely successful in attracting more fans to the sport. Cricket is a sport governed by all kinds of old rules and traditions — Twenty20 was explicitly designed to speed the game up and make it more exciting. Its success seems to back up the idea that changing the time-honored and traditional rules of a sport may be hubristic, it also may make a real difference in terms of how exciting the sport is.
Indians were huge cricket fans even before Twenty20 came on the scene. Now, the amount of interest in the game there is simply even more overwhelming than it is before as demonstrated by the eye-popping salaries paid to top players or the cost of sponsorship deals. Some of the players on the domestic Indian teams are actually expats from places like the U.K. and Australia who are being paid more in India than they were in their own countries playing mostly traditional cricket.
June 17, 2010, 9:32 amJohn H. says:
My experience has been that those who have played this game their entire lives (I turn 30 at the end of the month and started playing when I was 4) love the game just the way it is. Soccer is a much more complex sport than what can be understood after only watching about 7 games of a single world cup. There is so much more going on, which dramatically raises the excitement and entertainment level, than what the passive fan sees.
So, while I understand why such fans might think it needs to be changed, it is the equivalent of someone reading the cliff notes of the U.S. Constitution and then telling a constitutional scholar that they have figured out how to make it oh, so much better.
June 17, 2010, 9:35 ambillb says:
Like what?
June 17, 2010, 9:40 amJohn H. says:
Movement off the ball.
Strategy of play style, such as drawing players out with continued play style of one type to force the other team to take a particular stance on the field, which then can be taken advantage of. (Soccer’s version of an American football coach calling the same play over and over in a particular situation, to set up the other team for an unexpected change, except it is less obvious in soccer).
Little battles that happen between individual players, setting each other up for mistakes and expected reactions.
The ability of one team, Spain in the world cup, to move the ball around the field like no one else can.
The ability of one player to completely dominate, and thus dramatically weaken his overall team (Portugal and Ronaldo).
Watching a set play unfold (something that is fairly common but far less obvious than in many other sports, basketball comes to mind).
The offsides trap. Which takes great coordination between the defense and, if they fail to do it correctly, will probably result in a goal.
There’s plenty more, but the game just started! Gotta go!
June 17, 2010, 10:01 amNaG says:
When the response to a rule-change suggestion is nothing more than, “This is how we’ve always done it, and people like it the way it is” — which completely side-steps the more difficult issue of WHY the suggestion is or is not an improvement — I immediately suspect that the opponent is simply hoping to reduce the argument to one of who loves the game more rather than actually analyzing whether the game could indeed be better than it is. Appeals to the “beauty” of the game and all are simply appeals to tradition. It’s not a serious argument. On a law blog, stare decisis does not end every legal issue. We expect better than that.
Would Brazilians love the game less if penalty kick goals were worth one point and regular game goals worth two? Who is to say they would not love it even more, as they focus their teams on the glory of scoring the latter, leaving the Brits to focus on penalty kicks?
June 17, 2010, 10:02 amspot says:
When something has obvious flaws then its not hard to make suggestions for how to improve it.
When “thats the way its always been done” is the only justification for something then improving something doesn’t take a whole lot of work. Does anyone really believe that penalty kicks as they currently stand are an ideal situation that cannot possibly be improved on?
June 17, 2010, 10:03 amJerome Cole says:
Soccer is for Englishmen and homosexuals! Please promote your buggery elsewhere.
June 17, 2010, 10:05 amspot says:
Every few years they loosen up the offsides rules as teams learn how to play better and better defense with the rules stacked in their favor. Here’s an article about the evolution of the offsides rule for those interested- its actually an article talking about how the current rule is perfect but I can’t help but read it and think that a further liberalization is inevitable.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/apr/13/the-question-why-is-offside-law-genius
And as I said in another thread- my idea would be to simply put a line 10 yards from themiddle on both sides and not count offisdes until that point. It wouldn’t fundamentally change the game- it would just help attackers get a little more in front of the ball. Tweak the position of that line based on how much you want to open the game.
June 17, 2010, 10:10 amEllTee says:
Here’s an interesting counter-argument to major rule changes. http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/blogs/balls/more-rules-please-were-the-afl/20100429-ttgm.html
Although this article is about Australian rules, they key argument is that the sport itself is best left to figure out how to evolve.
If we introduced penalty box scenarios like ice-hockey, that would just increase the prevalence of games like the Barcelona-Internazionale match from earlier this year where Inter just packed the box and successfully managed to stifle Barcelona.
What would probably happen is that managers would start to pick more defensive players who could fill in if a defender got sent to the penalty-box, thus reducing the number of attacking player son the pitch.
Making a penalty goal only worth one point, and other goals worth two will increase the amount of “professional fouls” in the penalty area. If denying a clear goal scoring opportunity only results in conceding half a goal, more players will do it.
June 17, 2010, 10:15 amJohn H. says:
I will say that one change I’m very open to is penalizing the hell out of teams/players who dive or fake injuries. This was something completely foreign to me until I started watching professional soccer. Had one of my teammates pulled this type of crap when I was growing up, he would have been laughed at and ridiculed for the rest of the season.
I would suggest forcing any player that stops play because he is “injured” to be taken off the field for 30 minutes, carrying over to the next game if it happens close to the end. If a player is carried off the field because of an injury, then that player isn’t allowed to be brought back on for the rest of the half or 30 minutes, which ever is longer.
This is also something that makes me proud of the American team, that our representatives, for the most part, realize how shameful it is to fake an injury to gain an advantage. I wish the media would work much harder to shame and embarrass those who do dive, maybe have a “Dive of the Match” moment at the end of every game.
June 17, 2010, 10:15 amEric says:
There is so much more going on, which dramatically raises the excitement and entertainment level, than what the passive fan sees.
*****
This is true of baseball, football, basketball, hockey, racing, etc.
June 17, 2010, 10:16 amrmd says:
Perhaps they can consider changing the rules to allow one player to throw the ball to another and allow the player with the ball (call him “the receiver” or something) to run with it until opposing players physically stop him. Maybe make the ball oblong and pointy so as to be easier to throw accurately. Oh, and change the name — “soccer” doesn’t really describe anything, does it?
June 17, 2010, 10:17 amcs says:
While I think the merits of some of his proposals are debatable, soccer isn’t a perfect sport (like all sports) and making suggestions about how to improve it seems reasonable.
As for specifics, soccer is both offense and defense, and I think proposals to try to alter the balance between them intentionally are kind of silly. On the other hand, soccer is not players faking injuries, diving, and wasting time. Thinking about ways to deincentivize these things seems like something valuable to do, and that’s what I really like about some of Epstein’s suggestions.
June 17, 2010, 10:18 amJohn H. says:
I agree completely. I also think that if, for example, someone who had just started watching baseball last week started making suggestions on how the game could be changed to make it better, they would be laughed at and regarded as not knowing what they are talking about.
June 17, 2010, 10:25 amPeter Gerdes says:
Presumably part of the reason he believes the common law has evolved towards greater efficiency is through the actions of people who study and comment on it’s operation. I see no conflict between this view and suggesting improvements to the rules.
EllTee:
The article you link seems primarily an argument against changing the rules to discourage particular styles of play. I tend to think these kinds of changes ought to be viewed suspiciously and only adopted after an unpleasant style of play dominates for a long time. I don’t take Epstein to have any such goal in mind. He barely even mentions player style. He just wants to make the game more fair and fix some of the more irritating rules.
Finally I find the idea that somehow because billions of people already like soccer it’s somehow bad taste to offer suggestions for improving the game. I’m sure many soccer fans have their own strongly held views on which rules ought to be changed. I mean if Epstein had suggested that the game be changed to suite US peculiarities, e.g., adding breaks for commercials, that would be something else but he didn’t.
I mean if it’s a stupid suggestion only a neophyte would make then explain why it’s such a dumb idea and laugh at him for that not merely for having the temerity to make suggestions about soccer as an american.
June 17, 2010, 10:27 amRoger the Shrubber says:
I suspect some number of those people would also like to see rules changes.
More importantly, lest we forget: the fact that 2 or 3 billion people love something is not really evidence that the thing is good; and it certainly isn’t evidence that the thing can’t be improved.
A whole freakin’ boatload of people seem to like McDonald’s cheeseburgers, for example.
June 17, 2010, 10:29 amDarel Finkbeiner says:
I really don’t think we need to complicate the rules of a game that is designed for children.
June 17, 2010, 10:29 amAultimer says:
Wrong. The stated goal is to make the game “more fun to watch” and the stated audience is those who “get a taste” of the game. Futbol snobs can keep their rules, expressive color-cardings, short-handed giant fields and “nils” in the “89th minute”.
The rest of us spectators would prefer that the top players move to the indoor version, or better, learn to skate or handle a lax stick.
June 17, 2010, 10:35 amPeter Gerdes says:
Not at all clear since such a strategy would also reduce your ability to take advantage of the other team’s penalties.
Possibly. Depends on how the refs react. Given the smaller stakes they may be more willing to call fouls. Still you are probably right that it will increase the incentive for professional fouls. This doesn’t necessarily make it a bad change. I mean if you really wanted to minimize fouls you could just make any foul result in forfeiting the match and clearly that would be a bad idea.
June 17, 2010, 10:40 amDan says:
Diving, while an epidemic in soccer, is not unique to soccer. How many times have you seen an nfl receiver drop a pass and then turn around to complain to the ref that he was held. Linemen in the nfl try to get away with as much holding as possible without getting caught. NBA players attempt to draw fouls and exaggerate the effects of contact. In baseball, catchers “frame” the pitch, i.e., try their best to make an outside pitch look as if it crossed through the strikezone. None of these sports are golf, where the players call penalties on themselves.
June 17, 2010, 10:40 amHawk30 says:
Let me see:
You’re the last man back and just got beaten so the forward has a breakaway.
If you permit him to shoot, his team scores 2 points.
If you hack him down from behind for a penalty kick or a set piece, his team only scores 1 point.
I can’t think of a much better way to increase the amount of cynicism in final third of the field.
June 17, 2010, 10:43 amMartinned says:
I think it isn’t so much a wisdom of the masses issue as it is a matter of sacrilege. We should no more mess with the core rules of football than we should mess with the rules of chess. The objective is to play the game as well as possible within the rules, not to tweak the rules as if the game was nothing more than mere entertainment, at par with going to the cinema. I say “NO to the Michael Bay approach to writing the laws of football!”
June 17, 2010, 10:57 amRoger says:
David seems determined to convince us all that soccer is a hopelessly idiotic sport.
June 17, 2010, 11:08 amUrso says:
I confess myself befuddled as to what the purpose of spectator sports is, if not “mere entertainment.”
June 17, 2010, 11:18 amMenshevik says:
I agree completely with John H. about the problem of diving/flopping/faking. Someone on another blog suggested that game films be reviewed afterwards by officials, with ex post facto yellow cards handed out for flagrant examples. Which team has the worst offenders? Italy is definitely in the running.
June 17, 2010, 11:30 amyankee says:
I’m not a sports fan, but the fact that World Cup games are routinely decided by penalty shootouts strikes me as a serious flaw. It doesn’t make sense to have two hours of athletic competition decided by what amounts to a coin flip. But scoring is so rare that even sudden-death overtime regularly fails to produce a winner.
I don’t share the normal American aversion to ties and it doesn’t bother me that scoring is uncommon. But if you’re playing a tournament people need to win games and penalty shootouts are an inelegant and unsatisfying way of making it happen.
June 17, 2010, 11:40 amIlya Somin says:
Epstein does not claim that the common law evolves towards greater efficiency over time. You are confusing him with the young Richard Posner. Even if the latter was correct, there is no reason to believe that the same logic applies to the rules of soccer, which are not developed in anything like the same way as the common law.
June 17, 2010, 11:46 amMartinned says:
This is a common American misconception, that causes much miscommunication between Americans and the rest of the world when it comes to football. Unfortunately I am not enough of a poet to be able to phrase it correctly, so I’ll have to borrow a few passages from Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, which I just finished reading yesterday:
On his first visit to a football game:
About Arsenal when they still played ugly football (i.e. before Arsene Wenger):
June 17, 2010, 11:47 amMartinned says:
In Nicky Hornby’s aforementioned book, I discovered that English cup ties never used to have penalty shoot outs. Even today, a draw in an FA Cup match means a replay, but currently if the replay ends in a draw as well, they play overtime and penalties. But in the olden days, apparently they kept playing replays until there was a winner.
June 17, 2010, 11:52 amSteve says:
I would suggest forcing any player that stops play because he is “injured” to be taken off the field for 30 minutes, carrying over to the next game if it happens close to the end. If a player is carried off the field because of an injury, then that player isn’t allowed to be brought back on for the rest of the half or 30 minutes, which ever is longer.
Yeah, it totally would have improved the U.S.-England match if the U.S. goalie had been forced to leave the field for 30 minutes after he got kicked in the ribs, as opposed to heroically staying in the game as happened in reality. That totally would have improved the game and certainly wouldn’t have rewarded the player who injured him or anything like that.
June 17, 2010, 12:01 pmJohn H. says:
Martinned makes an excellent point. Soccer is specifically designed for the players to love to play it. The fact that billions of people on this planet find it entertaining to watch when they aren’t playing it themselves is just a nice side effect. Certainly, there is no American sport (or any thing else on non-pay-per-view tv for that matter) where you can watch continual action for 45+ minutes straight. The reason is that soccer isn’t meant to be about the advertisers or the fans, it’s meant to be for the players.
June 17, 2010, 12:02 pmSlow says:
This would solve most of the problem. As we are always referring to the way the NFL does things better, this is another example. They review game film. If someone makes a dangerous tackle, even if it isnt called in the game, they get a fine and maybe a suspension. Just because a Ref missed it, doesnt mean it happens.
Just have a three person panel review questionable plays, if two people agree its a dive – then the player gets the appropriate penalty.
I would double down on this rule. If you dive and get a PK that results in goal – automatic two game suspension for the player and the team plays the next game a man down for their next game. This way if the Ref makes the bad call and awards the PK, the team has the option of just kicking it out of bounds to avoid the tougher sanctions.
Also soccer should adjust itself to modernity and allow more substitutions and timeouts. Teams should be allowed five subs per half. Players taken out in the first half my return in the second. This would just improve the overall quality of play, and maybe even reduce the number of injuries.
It would improve play because players would not need to hold back during the first half of the game, to conserve all their energy for the second half, and also their would be less tired players still playing in the second half.
It may result in less injuries, because in any given team tired players are more likely to be injured, and would likely decrease the number of minutes each individual player plays over the course of an already long season.
June 17, 2010, 12:06 pmdearieme says:
Call me a sceptic, but I’m beginning to suspect that many of the commenters on the soccer posts have not only never played soccer, but have never played any of the other football codes either. Or, if they have, they stopped before they were adults.
June 17, 2010, 12:21 pmFloridan says:
I didn’t read all of the comments, so it may have been said before, but Epstein’s suggestions, taken as a whole, would have a preverse effect on the game.
For instance, the point differential for goals scored from play and those from PKs would lead to more fouls to prevent goals being scored; the “time-out” suggestion would only make it more so.
The one thing I hate about basketball (a game only worth watching in the final minutes, and then only if it’s close) is the constant fouling, particularly in the final minutes. For whatever flaws soccer might have, it is much better than basketball, for that reason alone.
June 17, 2010, 12:30 pmTed S. says:
For the most part, I don’t think soccer needs to be changed – particularly with respect to the size of the field, the size of the goal, or the current offsides rules. I don’t mind seeing games end in draws, but I would prefer for games not to end with shootouts. I don’t like it in either soccer or hockey, but I don’t have a better solution (and don’t agree with the idea of gradually reducing the number of players over time in order to promote goal scoring).
However, I would love to see harsher and more frequent penalties for flopping/diving, as others have suggested. There’s also not a rule change that could really address this, but I’d love to see something done about defenders who, when there is even the remotest possibility of a hand ball, stop playing and simply start flailing their arms about. How about you defend the friggin’ goal, instead of trying to do the ref’s job for him?
June 17, 2010, 12:31 pmB. Doherty says:
To quote Prof. Post: “It takes a lot of confidence — or chutzpah — to come in and say: I have figured out a way to make this better.” Therefore, you are wrong. Unless you’re one of the millions of basketball fans. But then, if you were, you wouldn’t have criticized such a beautiful game in the first place.
June 17, 2010, 12:37 pmgeokstr says:
Perhaps to vicariously allow the general population to relieve their aggressive animal tendencies that otherwise might get taken out on the elites, with no one getting hurt except the participants. (See Lions v Christians)
Although handslessball does seem to violate that, what with all the tramplings and such.
June 17, 2010, 12:38 pmGMUSL '07 Alum says:
The more he posts about it, the more I dislike it, and I’m already starting pretty high.
The only thing worse than the boring game is the smugness of its fans who feel the need to preach to us constantly about how amazing that boring shit is, and how we’re idiots for not appreciating the boredom.
June 17, 2010, 12:40 pmGMUSL '07 Alum says:
Fixed it for you.
June 17, 2010, 12:43 pmMartinned says:
What does soccer even mean? Is it something to do with socks? AFAIK players in other codes also wear socks, so that can’t be it…
Why don’t we keep it simple and agree to use the term “football” for the sport where you kick the ball with your foot. If your sport involves carrying the ball in your hands and throwing it around, I think logic dictates that you call it something other than football.
June 17, 2010, 12:49 pmmrcausality says:
The game is not internationally beloved because of its rules but rather despite them (and their inconsistent application). As has been said by others in other threads, national pride is a large reason people watch soccer. If your nation succeeds in a sport, no matter how dopey, people will watch. I would have watched the U.S. team in curling if they would have made it to the gold medal match. Otherwise, the sport bores me to tears.
People will suffer watching awful sports (not suggesting soccer is awful) because that’s “what’s on”. I have, gulp, watched bowling because it was on. I’m not proud of it, nor could I watch it for long, but it is easy to imagine that had I only access to three TV stations, and the other two were discussing the sublime qualities of our nation, I would probably opt for the bowling.
For me, soccer on the international stage reflects everything that is inconsistent, capricious, irrational, and ultimately self-serving of the international community. There are, crudely speaking, nice clear rules and guidelines and yet no one seems capable of either following or enforcing them. This statement could be made also by replacing “soccer” with “the UN”.
Watching the top teams is true suffering, but not necessarily in a good sense. It is suffering their wretched acting, flopping, feigned indignation, tantrum throwing, and magical healing powers from a quick rub and a wet sponge. U.S. sports certainly suffer similar problems (see NBA flopping, makeup calls, etc.), but to a far lesser extent. Moreover, this behavior is frowned upon enough where it has been controlled better.
June 17, 2010, 12:54 pmmrcausality says:
Not sure if you’re really asking the question, but soccer is short for “association football”, to distinguish it from other sports with “football” in the name (e.g. rugby football).
June 17, 2010, 1:00 pmMartinned says:
That’s what I was asking. I’d heard this explanation before, but I never quite got how you go from “association football” to “soccer”, or why it is even necessary to do so.
June 17, 2010, 1:02 pmLongCat says:
“Football,” as understood by non-European English speakers is the result of the evolution of rugby football, a game undoubtedly fitting your ‘use of the feet’ criteria. Must you change the name of a sport whenever you make some incremental rule change, or must it only be a rules change that no true Scotsman would consider proper? Considering a rules change is considered heresy by some, perhaps non-european football should just be Protestant football.
As for non-English speakers, “football” (or “futbol” or “fotbol,” etc.) has just as much meaning as “soccer.”
EDIT: I should limit that to non-Germanic language speakers; my apologies.
June 17, 2010, 1:05 pmjc says:
I have some much better ideas for improving the rules of soccer. Change the ball from a sphere to an prolate spheroid with pointy ends. Switch from constant action to discrete bursts and defined plays. Allow players to touch the ball with their hands. Allow tackling. Allow forward passes. Move the goal 10 yards above the ground, and award three points for kicking it through. Award six points for running with the ball across a defined end line on the field. That’s just a start.
June 17, 2010, 1:06 pmB. Doherty says:
True enough, though the difference with soccer as I see it is that the flopping is often accompanied by grasping the knee and rolling around on the ground until a call is or is not made. Once a foul is called, or sufficient time has passed without one, the guy’s up and running around, no trace of an injury.
June 17, 2010, 1:10 pmmrcausality says:
Rarely if ever in language is something truly necessary, and often times shows poor rationality. Rather, expediency and cultural momentum/inertia seem to be the big drivers.
On that note, I have never understood how you get “Fannie Mae” from Federal National Mortgage Association. Perhaps “Fannie Soccer”?
June 17, 2010, 1:14 pmMartinned says:
Try saying FNMA as if it was an acronym real fast three times in a row.
June 17, 2010, 1:19 pmApperception says:
An interesting phenomena?
June 17, 2010, 1:36 pmgasman says:
In soccer, just because the defender is a sluggard and failed to position himself well on the field is no reason to prohibit the offense from capitalizing on this.
The offside rule is then perhaps viewed as a socialist thing, leveling the field and preventing one from getting ahead by shear hustle and grasping fortune. Instead offsides favors mediocre play and rewards the defense that is slow to get back in position.
Basketball has found a reasonable balance by prohibiting a man from continually standing under the basket, but lets the offense access the key as needed to mount a good play and requires the the defense to put up some meaningful resistance.
June 17, 2010, 1:37 pmIn soccer, just because the defender is a sluggard and failed to position himself well on the field is no reason to prohibit the offense from capitalizing on this.
Lurker says:
The goal has been the same size since the laws (not “rules”) of football were codified back a couple of centuries ago. Keepers, along with the rest of us, have become much taller and stronger. Increasing the size of the goal would be a traditionalist move, returning the game to its origins.
June 17, 2010, 1:41 pmMartinned says:
Quite the contrary, the off-side rule punishes “the defense that is slow to get back in position.” This can be in one of two ways: either their sluggardness causes them to leave opportunities for a well-timed run and pass, or it causes them to lift the off-side of attacking player. (An off-side trap only works if every defender is on time. If one of them is too slow to catch on, the entire team is up the creek without a paddle.)
June 17, 2010, 1:41 pmgasman says:
But only in soccer is it socially acceptable to feign pain. An american pro player would have his career forever tainted with the soccer style flops. Europeans roll on the ground with a hangnail, while american footballers will insist on walking off the field with a career ending injury.
June 17, 2010, 1:44 pmMartinned says:
1. Attackers, too, have become much taller and stronger. AFAIK there is no evidence that football games have fewer goals now than they did 100 years ago.
June 17, 2010, 1:45 pm2. Increasing the size of the goal would mean switching to the metric system. Quel Sacrilege! (As I wrote in previous comments, the goal is currently 8 yards by 8 feet, or 7.32 m. by 2.44 m. Any increase in the size of the goal would make it 7.5 x 2.5 or sth.)
Visitor Again says:
Your sport appears to be blowing in the wind. Huff and puff all you want until you blow yourself out. We who enjoy football have overwhelming numbers on our side and your buffoonery keeps us laughing between matches.
June 17, 2010, 1:49 pmAndrew J. Lazarus says:
What soccer needs is a 24-second shot clock.
June 17, 2010, 1:49 pmspot says:
martinned- From the article I linked to earlier talking about why Soccer liberalized the offside rule in 1925.
“When Newcastle drew 0-0 at Bury in February 1925, it came as the final straw. It was Newcastle’s sixth goalless draw of a season that produced what at the time was an unthinkably low average of 2.58 goals per game. The football was boring, attendances were falling and the FA, for once, not only recognised that something needed to be done, but set about doing it.”
Care to guess what the goals per game were for the first “round” of the world cup this year? (is there a term for what the first set of games though all the groups is supposed to be called?)
You act as though the offsides rule is sacred and can’t possibly be touched but as recently as 2005 they adjusted it to decrease the massive advantage that the rules give to the defense. And as teams continue to learn how to exploit the rules even more I think it would be pretty preposterous to think that there won’t be further weakening of the offsides rule moving forward.
June 17, 2010, 2:03 pmFrank Drackman says:
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong,
June 17, 2010, 2:04 pmThe Overtime Penalty Kick Shootouts the only 1/2 way entertaining thing about Soccer, they should do the whole game that way.
Its like if Jimmy Naismith never cut out the bottom of the Peach Baskets.
like if Abner Doubleday had make it 150 feet to first base.
Go Slovenia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Martinned says:
Last year’s Premier League had 2.77 goals per match. (The averages for other countries are 2.71 for Spain, 2.83 in Germany, 2.92 in the Netherlands (including 106 goals by Ajax), and 2.61 in Italy.) Imho this refutes the claim that there are fewer goals being scored than 100 years ago.
There’s a difference between “tweaking” the rule and the kind of complete overhaul the average American “once every four years” football fan tends to propose. I am not aware of any significant change in 2005. The last “tweak” of the offside rule was in 1995, when IFAB decided that it was not an offense to be offside unless you’re involved in active play. Imho, that’s still a tweak.
June 17, 2010, 2:14 pmd-berg says:
To everyone who holds soccer rules sacred: you forget that rules do change over time. It’s not an ancient wisdom passed through generations without a change. 50 years ago there were no cards and no substitutions. For a people with shorter memory, tt’s been less then 20 years since it became 3 points for a win. You say it’s off-the-filed rule? How about a ban on goalie handling a ball after a backward pass by a defender? This one change is about as young – and it was a great rule change, since it took away ability of a winning team to waste boatloads of time at the end of the game by passing back and forth between a defender and a goalie. And if this was a good change, how can anyone claim that we ran out of possible good changes? Surely there are other good ideas that can be implemented. Look, NFL adjust its rules a little all the time – and it is hugely popular. Volleyball and table tennis have both undertook significant rule changes – did they both die as sports?
June 17, 2010, 2:21 pmVisitor Again says:
“Soccer” is an abbreviation of “association” in the official name of the sport, association football. The same thing happened to rugby football; it became known as “rugger.”
When the Football Association, in charge of the game in England, published books celebrating its centenerary in 1963, it used the word Soccer rather than Football in their titles. When Tommy Lawton, a great star in postwar English football, published his autobiography in the 1950s, he titled it “My Life in Soccer.” “Soccer” was in wide use in England when I was a boy in the 1940s and 1950s. In fact, it was probably used more widely than “football.”
But today the word soccer is looked down upon in England and derided, incorrectly, as an American corruption of the name of the game simply because “soccer” is used as the name of the game in the USA. Anything in the sport having an association with the USA is automatically looked down on in England. English fans became even more hostile to to things American when the proposal for larger goals was made in the mid-1990s. The attitude is “leave our game alone; go play baseball or grid iron football.”
On, England!!!!! On, the USA as well!!!
June 17, 2010, 2:22 pmspot says:
Martinned- maybe you misunderstood. In 1925 they loosened the offside rule because defenses had gotten to be so strong that they were only 2.58 which was when the rules had to be radically altered. The level of scoring currently seen in today’s game would have called for radical change 100 years ago.
Here’s the article I posted about the constant liberalization of the offside rule and where it talks about the latest tweak to the rules in 2005. http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/apr/13/the-question-why-is-offside-law-genius
June 17, 2010, 2:43 pmmikeyes says:
According to the Wikipedia, Rugby was just one of several codes of football in the 19th century. So logically speaking American football is just an extension of the common ancestor of soccer/football. Just a few differences in the rules :grin:
June 17, 2010, 2:46 pmNathan says:
How about a rule change of a different sort:
If you’re part of a union of countries, with a common currency, then that union gets to send one team to the world cup.
Nationalism vs Brussels. I’d watch that fight. :)
June 17, 2010, 3:06 pmsilverpie says:
The analogy of a penalty kick to a free throw is screwed up for another reason–a foul in the act of shooting is two free throws! Three if it’s a three-pointer. In either case, enough to make up the entire scoring opportunity if it’s properly executed.
(By the way, the 2-point conversion dates back to 1958 in college football–the NFL was late to the party on that one.)
June 17, 2010, 3:06 pmJenny says:
It’s really true that if you haven’t invested time in soccer (playing/watching), you really can’t appreciate the game. But isn’t that like a lot of things? An acquired taste and all that?
Changing the rules to make it better for the fans? What fans? People who don’t watch soccer? You’d have to convince me that there wouldn’t be damage to the game as it really seems pretty close to being balanced between the various interests now. Changing the rules always results in some unintended consequences, as mentioned above – PKs only resulting in 1 point instead of 2 – yeah, you are going to get a lot more fouls, but that raises the injury potential, but the guy can’t fall down because he’ll have to leave the field for 30 minutes, which then gives the advantage to the fouling team, etc . . .
Soccer is the beautiful game because it can be played and enjoyed by people of all ages and all skill levels (ever tried playing T-ball with 4 year olds? Now that’s torture). Once you understand what’s going on on the field it’s fantastic excitement, and for all of you who want the game to be more exciting isn’t the flopping and the diving pretty dramatic? What more could you want? Extraordinary athleticism on display and theater all in one event? Bravo!!
June 17, 2010, 3:16 pmdw says:
As an ex-Brit who’s now an American, I would like to suggest that baseball would be vastly more entertaining if outfielders weren’t allowed to wear gloves :)
I agree that soccer could use some rule changes, but not necessarily the ones that Epstein suggests.
June 17, 2010, 3:27 pmMartinned says:
Are you kidding me? The Eurozone has like 9 of the 11 best players in the world. (I guess the other two are Messi and Kaka.) If the Eurozone (or worse, the EU) played as a single country, they’d be unstoppable.
June 17, 2010, 3:30 pmMartinned says:
You’re right! Way more in-field home runs that way!
June 17, 2010, 3:31 pmSteve says:
When the Football Association, in charge of the game in England, published books celebrating its centenerary in 1963, it used the word Soccer rather than Football in their titles. When Tommy Lawton, a great star in postwar English football, published his autobiography in the 1950s, he titled it “My Life in Soccer.” “Soccer” was in wide use in England when I was a boy in the 1940s and 1950s. In fact, it was probably used more widely than “football.”
This information deserves to be more widely known!
June 17, 2010, 3:36 pmBC says:
Extraordinary athleticism on display and theater all in one event?
Excuse me.
There is nothing “extraordinary” about the athleticism involved in soccer, even at the World Cup level, in comparison to what can be found in other organized sports. Nor is soccer uniquely dramatic, as anybody who watched even a few games of the recently-completed Stanley Cup playoffs can attest.
You like soccer. Fine. It’s unnecessary to account for taste, especially with nonsense like this.
June 17, 2010, 3:52 pmgeokstr says:
Also, as (IIRC) George Carlin used to say, the reason it’s hard to get a hit in baseball is because the defenders know where you have to go and can easily throw you out at first base. He recommended that it be at the discretion of the hitter as to which base to run to.
June 17, 2010, 4:01 pmJeff the Baptist says:
Should we also increase the height of the basket in basketball to counter size of the mutants currently playing the game professionally?
June 17, 2010, 4:19 pmHamlet says:
I don’t see how the long persistence of the current rules is somehow an argument against change. Is your point meant to imply that we should find his suggestions less persuasive because they go against the traditional view? That seems counter to the spirit of this blog.
As some people above have mentioned, it would be lot more interesting to see your substantive response to his claims, rather than a simple attempt to undermine his credibility.
June 17, 2010, 4:45 pmwikipedia reader says:
reading gasman’s analysis of offsides is hilarious. I hope he has never played soccer, for if he had, I would have to assume that he was in the running for most tactically daft soccer player ever.
Offsides rule benefits the slow defenders? seriously? Maybe I just didnt get the sarcasm.
When you have offsides, you benefit the fast cohesive defenders who sprint forwards at once, and “catch” the attackers offsides.
June 17, 2010, 4:51 pmJenny says:
You don’t like soccer. Fine. But I didn’t disparage any other sport in some kind of chest thumping contest to prove my sport superior.
Soccer players are great athletes, running at least 5-7 miles per match, and being coordinated enough to do it with a ball at their feet. That’s pretty good, no? They also have to think on the fly since soccer doesn’t have set plays or guaranteed stops and starts (well, depending on the referee). That’s just a couple things that make soccer a great game, and one where the players must really take charge of the game, not the coach.
Other sports are good too, with these various attributes, but let’s not deny that soccer requires a well rounded athleticism that doesn’t favor any particular body type. Many other sports you have to be extra tall or extra bulky to have a reasonable chance to compete (soccer also has a pretty low incident rate for performance enhancing drugs – which I would say shows that many aspects of athleticism/coordination are required, not just one). Great soccer players come in all sizes, so the fact that that wide of a variation of players find spots on a world wide stage is pretty extraordinary.
As far as the drama goes, I was being a little sarcastic, but everyone complains that soccer is so boring. Just pointing out that there is a cross-over of artistic talent found on the pitch as well.
June 17, 2010, 4:52 pmJohn C says:
As someone who still has a couple Chicago Sting programs and ticket stubs tucked away…
I always preferred the shootout to penalties (for tie-breaking purposes). To me, the PK is the equivalent of using a coin toss to decide the game. Actually, as one can guess left, center, or right – it’s more like “Rock-Paper-Scissors” deciding the game.
As far as the offsides; it’s been so long since I’ve seen a game played with the old NASL 35 yard line… I do seem to remember it having a negative impact (to my mind) when FIFA forced the NASL to conform to the midfield rule.
Ah, the good old days of Karl-Heinz Granitza, Arno Steffenhagen, Pato Margetic…
June 17, 2010, 5:01 pmMartinned says:
Indeed. I think the Champions’ League tracking system puts them at sth. like 9-10 km, depending on position.
FIFA’s unholy “castrol index” also has information on distance covered, but it’s a lot of work to get at it. For Gabriel Heinze, they have 19,19 km. in two matches and for Messi they have 16,95.
June 17, 2010, 5:12 pmNaG says:
Okay, I appreciate the arguments that have been made against the proposal that penalty kicks be worth one point and regular goals be worth two — namely that such a rule would reward hard fouls and promote needless injury. This raises the alternative proposal: penalty kicks be worth two points, regular goals one. That way, fouls are expressly discouraged, and defenses have to be more creative.
I would also bring back more free kicks — kicks that may not score a goal until touched by another player after the kick. Say, minor infractions get free kicks, but anytime someone is carded (and only then) do you have penalty kicks.
I would also consider a ban on punting by goalies. They can either not use their hands and just kick normally, or they can pick up the ball and throw it. Also, they have three seconds to release a ball they have picked up or else the other team gets a corner kick. The first rule eliminates the random headers and forces teams to move the ball up the field with deliberation. The second rule speeds up the game and encourages teams to act quickly to counterattack.
I also like having more substitutes. I would actually allow unlimited substitutes, but they can only happen after a goal or after the ball has crossed the goal line (resulting in a corner kick or goal kick). Allow coaches to rest players so that they will play all out more often, and allow for more matchup strategy.
June 17, 2010, 5:33 pmmrcausality says:
With all due respect, 5-7 miles is not very much, or I should say it doesn’t speak necessarily to the rigor under which they have to run. For the upper range that equates to a very slow jog for 1.5 hours at 4 2/3 mph.
It comes down to how you define athleticism. If you just incorporate raw physical attributes like strength, speed, and agility, then I think soccer is far below some other sports like basketball, American football, rugby, Aussie football, to name a few. I realize each sport may have positions that don’t require much according to this definition. If you include hand/foot coordination, then soccer definitely can make a better case for itself.
All things being equal, sports that require sophisticated tactics and skill (considered separately from athleticism) in order to be victorious generally place less of an emphasis on raw athleticism. The US in basketball, for a long time, held both athletic and skill/tactical superiority. I would claim they still hold an enormous athletic superiority but no longer the tactical or skill advantage they once had. As a result, they encounter far stiffer competition internationally and the NBA has seen a large influx of foreign players never seen before the previous decade.
Although size and speed matter, teams like Argentina and Brazil that seem to have a yo-yo attached to their feet when handling the ball spend minimal effort to maximize their opponent’s efforts in defending them. It’s really astounding to see the skill with which the play, and is to me what separates them from a second tier team like the US.
June 17, 2010, 5:47 pmgeokstr says:
Absolutely not.
All we need to do is make the basket a hole in the floor, and soon lots of midgets and dwarves will have multiyear million dollar NBA contracts.
June 17, 2010, 5:51 pmBama 1L says:
I haven’t really read the comments, just the article.
Epstein’s proposed changes would lead to more dangerous (injury-causing) defensive plays. Currently, if an attacker is about to score, a defender doesn’t get rough with him because that will set up a penalty kick (excellent change of a score) and a card (continuing detriment to defender’s team). Better to let the man take his shot.
In the Epstein League, roughing up the attacker leads to a “half-goal” and powerplay. Roughing the man up seems pretty reasonable.
It really seems like it would be soccer malpractice not to foul the attacker, particularly if you were up by a goal or two. So you would get a more violent, defensive game.
Why Epstein can’t see this is beyond me. The incentives are pretty clear, aren’t they? Maybe he’s wrong about the common law, too.
June 17, 2010, 5:57 pmMartinned says:
Since a penalty kick is already greatly dreaded, I hardly think that fouls within the box need to be discouraged more than they already are. Not to mention that this idea misses the point: the ball goes into the goal = a goal. You count the goals, whoever has the most wins. From your proposal, you might as well award three points for a goal from outside the box. The laws of football are simple, let’s keep it that way.
That’s called an indirect free kick. There are plenty of them.
You seem to be confused. The penalty kick has to do with the problem of how to arrange a free kick if it is too close to the goal. (Remember, no opposition players within 10 yards of the ball when a free kick is taken.) A penalty is given because of the location of a foul, not because of its severity.
Why would you want to reduce the options for attack? Forcing the attacking side to play everything over the ground just makes it easier to defend.
A corner kick??? Why not five bucks? Giving a corner kick in those circumstances is completely random. The rules of football are simple, completely intuitive. Let’s keep it that way. If you want to make your three second rule a foul, award a direct or indirect free kick for an infraction. But a corner kick???
BTW, I’m far from certain that it is a good thing to force teams to counterattack quickly. That would case more stupid losses of possession, and thus more chaotic play. Why not give them a few more seconds to unfold their attacking plan?
Sounds good. The only problem is that under the current rules, a substitution is a substantial disruption of the game. It takes time, because the referee has to keep a close eye on it to make sure that there aren’t any more players on the field than there are supposed to be. But in friendly internationals they tend to allow unlimited substitutions, although even then it is generally not permitted to put a player back in who has already been used. I’m not sure why that is…
June 17, 2010, 6:04 pmJenny says:
The technical skill, physical development, and mental focus necessary to be competitive in soccer is significant, and at least on par with any other popular sport.
Technically, kicking a ball to a certain spot, or moving target, at the right speed, (not to mention receiving and controlling possession), is certainly as skillful as throwing/receiving any other kind of ball. Have you heard about the complaints of the Jubalani ball at World Cup this year? Players are mad because they can’t get it to move like they are used to, so some leagues have been playing with it for months to try to get some mastery over the ball. Weather conditions (including rain) make a difference too – sort of like marksmanship, windage is a variable, for example.
Physically, I can’t think of any game where the players do cover so much ground in one game, in such a constant manner. Continuously changing movement, and although it may average out to 4mph, I’ve never seen any soccer game where the speed never changes. I agree, that would be boring.
Mentally, there is little break for the players to regroup if they are not working well (few subs, and no time-outs). Many other sports the coach has more influence over what goes on during the game. In soccer, the coaching has to take place more at practice, than during the game.
Some sports may excell over others in different areas, but on the whole, soccer is at least an equally respectable endeavor (although if pressed I will argue superior!).
Some of the suggested changes to the rules will affect the areas above, and perhaps infringe upon the essence of the game, which is supposed to be free flowing and creative. So if there’s going to be a change, it should be so that it enhances the game, not to interest more people. Build it and they will come.
June 17, 2010, 7:07 pmJenny says:
Martinned said: The laws of football are simple, let’s keep it that way.
and: The rules of football are simple, completely intuitive.
Exactly. Hence, we have The Beautiful Game.
June 17, 2010, 7:17 pmgladetariba says:
and a hockey-like system for penalties to replace the red card/yellow card scheme
June 17, 2010, 7:45 pmPele proposed that more than 20 years ago. Also reducing off side field
leo marvin says:
Exactly. When the world wants the opinions of meddling interlopers on sacred institutions like soccer rules and primogeniture, it will ask for them.
OK, snark off, but there’s a point here. As a supporter of single payer health care, among other things, I have no patience for the mindless Europe-bashing too often seen around here. But Americans don’t own any monopolies on provincial arrogance. We could all stand a little more humility, and one area I’d suggest European institutions like the soccer governing bodies consider that an American like Epstein may have a natural advantage is in the willingness to ask if a European sacred cow has outlived its usefulness.
Maybe the current soccer rules are the best they ever could be. Personally I have no problem with them, though my instincts in these matters tend to be pretty traditional. But shouldn’t we be suspicious about declaring a set of game rules sacrosanct?
June 17, 2010, 8:03 pmSome dude says:
Soccer would be better if it were hockey.
June 17, 2010, 8:17 pmHastings says:
Furthermore, the vast majority of the three billion people who love soccer don’t play it in an organized fashion with, say, yellow cards and red cards; they play it in fields, streets, and sandlots. So their love of the sport can’t be taken as a position on the details of its rules – which is why minor tweaks, like the golden goal, get enacted (and repealed) with barely any fuss.
There are plenty of cogent arguments against instant replay in baseball, but “baseball is the national pastime” isn’t one of them.
June 17, 2010, 8:24 pmMartinned says:
Why? It’s a game. One set of rules is as good as another, since the sum total of the rules defines the game. Changing the rules doesn’t make the game better, it makes the game a different game. (Upthread I made the – I think sensible – distinctions between amendments of the rules and tweaks, the latter being generally modest in scope and aimed an preserving the purpose of the original.)
I mean, we could decide that it is silly to organise a horse race, like il Palio in Siena or the Grand National, where you can even win if you’re no longer on your horse, but “updating” the rules simply transforms the game. In chess, there are countless variants, but none of them are even remotely as popular as classical chess, not even chess boxing. If chess players have found satisfaction in playing the exact same game for centuries, why would there be any need to change the rules of football after only 147 years?
June 17, 2010, 8:32 pmThe River Temoc, In Winter says:
Pray, good sir, that you never set foot in Glasgow.
June 17, 2010, 8:35 pmMartinned says:
On the contrary, the fact that the basic rules of football are simple enough that the game can be played by anyone who has at least one other player, a ball, and four objects that can serve as goal posts is exactly what is worth preserving.
BTW, the golden goal is not a rule of the game, in the sense that it is not part of the laws of football. Instead, it is a rule of a tournament, which the organiser of that tournament may or may not introduce. Any organiser of a tournament with knockout stages has to resolve the problem of what to do in case of a draw. Similarly, any organiser of a tournament in league form has to decide what to do when two or more teams end up equal on points (and how many points to award for a win and a draw in the first place). All of this is up to the organiser, and not part of the laws of football.
June 17, 2010, 8:39 pmDantes says:
I’m so tired of this “negative” soccer debate as mentioned earlier about the Inter-Barca match up. I’ve played soccer for over 30 years, I’m a student of the game, and dare I say even had a shot at representing my country (Canada…don’t laugh. Back in the 1980s our program was ahead of the U.S.) when I was 15 before I blew out my ACL.
People who take this posture simply have a one-sided view of the game. Personally, I love defensive qualities when it’s done right. It’s sophisticated in its own right. I love when the team function takes precedence over individual form. There’s a reason why Italy and Germany have seven titles and 13 finals between them and Holland and Spain none. Beauty as a means to an end is a sure path to being popular with the masses but with no victories – Brazil, of course, excluded. But even then, one of the most under rated aspect of Brazilian soccer is its defense. They wouldn’t have won their titles without it.
I submit the criticism against Inter IN THE SECOND LEG is short sighted. In Italy, they won 3-1 outplaying Barca “open” style and simply did what they had to do to win at the Camp Nou. It was a pragmatic game plan in the 2nd leg very much how Switzerland stopped Spain.
If one actually paid close attention rather than delude themselves about needing to be entertained, Inter and Switzerland were brilliant at taking away space at the right spots. At some point, it becomes easy to read a team who doesn’t adjust its tactics. Ball possession is over rated sometimes.
Personally, as a former coach, you’re a fool if you don’t adjust your tactics and that sometimes means playing rugged soccer. It’s not negative. It’s smart. It’s about winning. You don’t win points for looking pretty.
My two cents.
June 17, 2010, 9:35 pmMartinned says:
Like the man said:
June 17, 2010, 9:38 pmBC says:
No, you just made a couple of flatly ludicrous assertions about the sport in an effort to evangelize it. And now that someone’s pointed out that those assertions were, in fact, ludicrous, you’ve gotten all butthurt, and doubled down on the “extraordinary athletes” and “beautiful game” garbage.
People wonder why those of us who dislike soccer, or are ambivalent about it, are moved to remark on it derisively rather than simply not giving it a second thought. Soccerphiles’ evangelism has a great deal to do with it. You all seem to find it impossible to enjoy soccer without carrying on as if it’s some sort of transcendent exercise, and then act surprised when other people respond with irritation.
June 17, 2010, 9:42 pmDantes says:
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE how the Dutch play. Incidentally, they reached the finals twice – my sentence structure was off. Apologies. It’s just that I get a little frustrated, as a fan, when defense is over looked in any sport.
June 17, 2010, 9:47 pmJenny says:
C’mon BC, you are the one being ludricrous if you can’t agree that soccer isn’t at least as physically and mentally demanding as any other popular sport.
If that’s what you are referring to as me backing down from defending the gloriousness of soccer (praise be unto the soccer gods), then you missed the part where I said I will argue the superiority of soccer without hesitation! I just thought we could come to some common ground.
Now, butthurt? What the heck is that? Is that like bent out of shape? Naw, that’s not me. I just gave a few undisputed facts in support of a position, and tried to do it in a lighthearted way. I don’t know why you are so butthurt over that.
This is the same argument people have about any sport. The closest analogy I can think of is probably golf – those who don’t get it, really don’t get it, but once you try it, you start to see what everyone was talking about. Maybe it never becomes your favorite sport, but you could add a dimension of enjoyment to your sports repertoire. Come on, you know you want to.
June 17, 2010, 10:50 pmleo marvin says:
Changing rules can make a game different, better, neither or both. If nobody ever experimented with soccer rules, good luck supplying all the pee-wee leagues with severed heads. And a lot of other great games, e.g., rugby, American football, basketball, quidditch, never would have happened.
I agree that’s an important distinction, but a harder one to make in practice than in principle. Baseball history is divided into two major epochs (dead ball era, live ball era), defined by a type of change soccer apparently allows private contractors to make impromptu every four years. On the other hand, a few years ago American pro football changed the scoring rules by adopting the two point conversion from the college game. Significance? *Yawn…* The NBA stole the 3 point shot from the ABA — a major change some purists think the game was better off without, but fans sure don’t seem to mind.
Sure, if you changed how the pieces move, it would be different game. But if you changed how the matches are timed, or even whether they’re timed at all, would anyone doubt it’s still chess? So what would be the big deal for soccer referees to join the rest of us in the 21st Century and let everyone know how much time is left in the game?
June 17, 2010, 11:06 pmMartinned says:
The fourth official indicates the amount of injury time that will be added, and when that time is up, the referee ends the match as soon as the attack is over. (Unless more delay occurred during injury time.) Why would you want it more precise than that?
June 17, 2010, 11:16 pmleo marvin says:
I assume it would be easy enough for the ref to add the extra time onto the scoreboard in real time. Why keep the fans, players and coaches in the dark?
June 17, 2010, 11:30 pmMartinned says:
So that it won’t be necessary for anyone to attempt any “beat the buzzer” shots. As long as the attacking team is still attacking, they get to finish.
June 17, 2010, 11:36 pmleo marvin says:
I’m not saying the rule should be changed. The referee would still end the game at the conclusion of any attack in progress when time expires. The only difference is that everyone in the stadium would know what now only the referee does, i.e., what was in progress when the time ran out.
June 17, 2010, 11:49 pmMartinned says:
Huh? You did catch the part where I mentioned the guy with the board, right? He’s there for everyone to see, indicating the amount of injury time. AFAIK, they also put it on the scoreboard.
Either way, time in football is not an exact science. Yet another example of the simplicity of the game is that it works with gross time, not net time like in Basketball. IIRC, the stats tend to show that during a 90 minute match they’re only playing for about 70. The rest of the time is spent on interruptions (i.e. substitutions and various punishments for fouls). So there’s no reason to get all precise about the exact second the match should be over. This is not some big conspiracy to keep “the fans, players and coaches in the dark”, but rather a preference (shared by all) for playing the game instead of staring at the clock. I assure you, neither fans nor players nor coaches object to the current system. I’ve literally never heard anyone involved in the game complain about this. Many proposals for reform have been made over the years by various experts, but none of them have involved a change in the way time is kept.
June 18, 2010, 12:05 amMoritzStudent says:
1. Epstein’s first proposal is a good one, one which I have also proposed (to my circle of football watching friends) except that I proposed 0.5 points for a penalty the normal 1 for the field goal. Penalties are ridiculously easy to score and if they are given half the weightage of a field goal then the players may attempt to score a field goal rather than look to dive or flop to the ground at the slightest contact. As for the fear that this may provide a perverse incentive to the defending team to commit fouls this can be taken care of by red (in case of denial of a clear goal scoring opportunity or egregious fouls) and yellow cards (in other cases). Bama1L, even if a team is 2 goals up I don’t think a player would risk immediate suspension and suspension from subsequent games (it would be a good idea to try this empirically).
2. As for the temporary suspensions of foulers I think Epstein’s proposal is needlessly complicated. The current yello and red cards have no serious weaknesses.
3. Post match replays by refs to detect divers is a very good idea.
4. More substitues? Not too much a fan of this. Stamina does play an important role in the game.
5. As for extra time and penalty shoot-outs: Penalty shoot-outs are a horrible way to end a game. My proposal for this would be for each team to remove two players for the first two periods of extra time. The team which scores the silver goal wins. If after the first two periods the score is tied then let each team remove 1 player for each subsequent 10 minute period. Again the team which scores the silver goal wins.
June 18, 2010, 12:15 amleo marvin says:
And neither am I, just how it’s displayed. But if you’re right, and the added time is shown on the scoreboard, then my complaint is only with how it’s televised, at least in the U.S. The television announcers do tell us how much time gets added at the end of regular time, but I don’t recall seeing it displayed as it runs down. Maybe I just haven’t looked hard enough. I’ll look harder tomorrow.
June 18, 2010, 12:42 amU.Va. Grad says:
There are only 17 rules of soccer, and they were deliberately written in emulation of the English common law (at least, the common law system as it existed back in the 1860s) — pretty vague on many very important points, with the intention that referees would develop “precedential” interpretations as time passed. The guy who came up with the first official set of Laws of the Game was himself a judge, and he envisioned referees playing a similar common-law role.
June 18, 2010, 12:46 amJonathan says:
Current top-level Australian rules has 20 min per quarter plus ‘time on’. TV viewers see a clock run down from 20:00 to 0, stopping during as appropriate, but spectators at the ground have always only seen a gross time clock ticking up, with the siren in normal circumstances sounding around the 28-30 minute mark (at which point the umpire has no discretion).
Kept in the dark? Actually, one tv channel has started to switch to a gross time clock for the last 5 minutes of each game to recreate the more exciting at the ground experience.
June 18, 2010, 1:15 amBC says:
I play ice hockey, Jenny, in an adult amateur league. I will be endlessly entertained to hear you try to explain how soccer is at least as physically and mentally demanding as my game.
I would rather stab pickle forks into my testicles, actually.
June 18, 2010, 5:15 amMartinned says:
Well, the clock doesn’t “run down”, but “up”. It’s in the top left corner of the screen, usually.
June 18, 2010, 9:08 ammikeyes says:
Here is the Onion’s take.
June 18, 2010, 10:37 amJenny says:
BC/Adult Amateur,
I’m not inclined to respond to someone who talks about piercing his testicles with pickle forks, but your amateur mind will interpret that as defeat, which I will not concede! However, it’s clear that you have no intention of contemplating that soccer could be a legitimately demanding sport, so I will decline to “endlessly entertain” you in that way. If you have a change of heart, I will be happy to discuss the merits of soccer. And I will agree to entertain your implied assertion that ice hockey is the most blessed sporting event ever conceived, but I would ask that you leave the pickle forks, and your testicles, out of the conversation.
Since this is a “rules” thread, I have one comment on ending games in PK shootouts. It is a harsh way to end a game, but the golden goal is also unsatisfying. Soccer can be an unpredicatable game, which is one of the criticisms against it. Golden goals feed into the unpredictability where the “better” team may again not come out on top. PKs are almost a gimme, but I’ve seen plenty of players, amateur and professionals, completely choke on their shot and miss the goal entirely, and I’ve seen goalies make stupendous saves. Strategy, technical skill and mental toughness show up in PKs. Shootouts certainly have no lack of excitement.
On the reducing players over time idea – you could end up in the same position with an undesireable draw and have no players left to take off the field. That probably wouldn’t be likely, but it would be possible, so you’d still need a way to end the game. In theory, the same could be said of PKs.
I find that when looking at the options to address the criticisms, we come back to what is in place as the best balance between the interests. I didn’t make up the moniker “beautiful game” and didn’t know what it meant until many years of experience with the game. But there is a wonderfully balanced harmony to the game that is mostly devoid of artificial rules and restrictive equipment. To me, that makes for a fantastic sport all around.
June 18, 2010, 11:48 amCareless says:
I’m sure Americans will be on the “one referee and no review is a good thing” bandwagon after this game.
June 18, 2010, 11:50 amMartinned says:
On Youtube, there’s this clip from Slate:How to get Americans to Watch the World Cup, with extra statistics.
Also, here’s John Cleese explaining it all one more time.
June 18, 2010, 12:22 pmMartinned says:
Exactly. Why would anyone pass up the opportunity to add some litigating to their professional sports? At least three appeals, I say! (And don’t forget collateral review.)
June 18, 2010, 12:23 pmMartinned says:
It occurs to me that, unlike penalty shootouts and golden/silver goals, this one may not be up to the organiser’s discretion. Law 3 of the Laws of the Game might have something to say about the number of players:
The rest of law 3 then discusses substitutions, but nothing in the way of ending a game with fewer players than you started with. Sending people off is in law 12, and that may well be it.
Actually, even the methods for determining a winner are summed up in the laws. (They’re on page 50. The organiser may choose)
Of course, the laws of the game can always be changed, but is not easy. (For one thing, IFAB won’t meet again until March next year.) A modification like this does not seem to be something that FIFA can do on its own.
June 18, 2010, 12:37 pmCareless says:
BTW, the American team still doesn’t know why their third goal was disallowed.
June 18, 2010, 12:49 pmJaimeInTexas says:
Funny Onion video but …
What should we say about a game where guys wear pants so tight, keep slapping each other on the behind, where guys bend over at the begining of a play and one guy even gets to hover the back of the guy bent over in the middle. 8O
Football is still in the closet. Can we say “don’t ask, don’t tell?”
June 18, 2010, 1:13 pmBama 1L says:
Because the official blew the whistle. I don’t know what he thought he saw, but it doesn’t matter. Once you hear the whistle, you stop playing. The Slovenian players will always have a colorable argument that they heard the whistle and therefore did not make best efforts to stop the goal. That is what you want the players to do. So awarding the goal retroactively would not be fair.
It is just the official’s fault.
This happens in American football, too, if an official mistakenly whistles the ball dead. For example, there was the time in 2001 when Peyton Manning tried a fake spike against the Saints. (An actual spike is when the quarterback intentionally grounds the ball to stop the clock at the cost of a down. You do this when time is short. In a fake spike, the quarterback doesn’t actually ground the ball and runs a real play, hopefully catching the defense unprepared.) The official bought it and blew the whistle. The Colts wanted a touchdown but of course they couldn’t have one, because the Saints had heard the whistle and stopped defending. There is no remedy for officiating errors of this sort.
June 18, 2010, 1:25 pmBC says:
That is your (remarkably silly and juvenile) inference, not my implication. I have no interest in trying to defend ice hockey as “the most blessed sporting event ever conceived”. Unlike many soccerphiles, I appreciate that a preference for one sport over another is ultimately a matter of personal taste that requires no justification.
You’re the one running around making positive assertions about how soccer is at least as demanding as any other sport. I’m merely inviting you to go ahead and defend that position vis-a-vis a sport that I know well. I don’t think you can.
June 18, 2010, 2:21 pmJenny says:
Despite the unfair result for the US today, I’m not for any after game review. Everything needs to be sorted out on the field during the game. None of this “trying to make it perfect” attitude with instant replay and all that. Hopefully the mistakes don’t change the rightly outcome of the game, but it gives people a lot to argue about – who keeps saying there’s no excitement in soccer?
As for you BC, I have laid out facts that support my position, which you have not addressed, except to say that I am ludricous and silly. You said I was evangelizing, so I pointed out where you were chest thumping, Mr. Adult Amateur Ice Hockey. Instead of looking at soccer with an open mind, you would rather inflict pain on your testicles. Well, have at it.
June 18, 2010, 2:53 pmCareless says:
Go ahead, keep trying to deflect. The sport, like all others, is not perfect, and we saw examples of that today
June 18, 2010, 3:14 pmMartinned says:
For sure. But why does it matter? What does it even mean for a game to be “perfect”? All that matters is whether you’re enjoying it. Less thinking about perfection, more heart.
June 18, 2010, 3:36 pmjames says:
It is the best cardio exercise I’ve ever had. So much fun, and very similar to hockey in the rules. If you don’t have wild kickers, the ball also rarely goes out of bounds and stays in play – and the goal is quite large as well to keep the point scoring high…
June 18, 2010, 4:10 pmGainesvilleGuest says:
Thoughts on the “bad” call in the US-Slovenia game?
June 18, 2010, 6:10 pmBC says:
Looking back over this thread, I see you arguing approximately as follows:
Soccer players are amazing athletes because…
(1) They run as much as five to seven miles during an average match (i.e., they have great endurance);
(2) While controlling a ball with their feet (i.e., they have great coordination/agility);
(3) And are required to think on the fly given that there are no predictable stoppages of play (i.e., they have great creativity).
Is that a fair summary?
June 18, 2010, 7:46 pmgladetariba says:
USA robbed again in a WC
June 18, 2010, 8:23 pmIn 2002, Germany was awarded a ghost goal against the USA ousting them of semifinals. The ball then was farther from the goal than it was in 1966 when the local England received a goal gift to steal the cup from Germany
Later today, Algeria with a draw against England kept USA hopes alive
rpt says:
The referee cited Bush v. Gore in his decision.
June 18, 2010, 11:46 pmrpt says:
My four nieces have each gotten Div I soccer scholarships, with a total value in excess $450,000. My brother and sister-in-law (and I) like soccer quite a bit. Thank you 1999 World Cup team. It’s also easier to find pickup games if you don’t need an ice rink.
June 18, 2010, 11:51 pmJenny says:
BC,
It’s a shame that you don’t like soccer. With your obstinance you would make a perfect hooligan.
rpt,
Four Div I players in one family? That’s some hard working young ladies!
June 19, 2010, 12:20 amAlessandra says:
Careless says:
BTW, the American team still doesn’t know why their third goal was disallowed.
============
I’ll tell you why, idiots deserve each other.
Only a full of (expletive) athlete elbows another on the side of the head for no good reason in the beginning of a match. He got the referee that he deserved and how nice that was to watch. Soccer has an ugly history of such sorry behavior, and, although it is better to punish the guilty athlete with cards and fouls and expulsions, in this case the just sanction came later. By mistake or not by mistake, justice was done (go clueless Mali referee! all the more power to you!).
Long before Americans learned to play soccer, this type of behavior was a nasty problem in the sport, and it just needs to be punished until it is rooted out.
As to what I would immediately love to see changed in soccer is to use video playback to decide ANY and ALL questionable happenings during a match, whether we are talking about senseless violence, faked injuries or just plain game playing calls. It’s the only way not to insult the viewers’ intelligence.
In second place, any rule change that creates more scoring opportunities would greatly decrease the deadly boring aspect of today’s soccer for viewers. The goals are beautiful, we could have a lot more and benefit from the ensuing enjoyment.
Lastly, I totally agree it’s a different sport when you are playing it versus couch potatoing. The first is great, the second is a terrible punishment on innocent viewers.
June 19, 2010, 7:08 amBuji says:
Soccer has become as much a chance game as a skill game..”boring without scoring” The scores tell it all, and it is a shame. Who wants to sit and watch players kick the ball back and forth to their own keeper all the time. Here are my suggestions:
1. Only 3 passes can be made within your own defensive half, then the ball must go to the opponents half. (This rule is an absolute MUST.. can you imagine volley ball for example without such a rule..you would be watching people pass each other the ball forever without anything happening)
2. Once you are in the opponents defensive half, the ball cannot go back to your own defensive half.
3. Forward position only applies if you are in the penalty area then the pass is kicked, you should be allowed to be positioned anywhere else in a forward position at the passing moment and run into the penalty area (but NOT the goal area, to protect the keeper)
4. Of course video replay should be made use of, I seen such ridiculous calls by referees that work against the truthfulness and fairness of the game and are an insult to players that train so hard. But you must give up something: a player exchange, or if you have no exchanges you get a penalty against you. The team captain has to indicate the challenge within 5 seconds after the call, to prevent unfair instructions from outside of the field that already watched the replay.
5. A method must be designed to allow commercial breaks at non-critical free-kicks, someone has to pay for this… Finding advertising money is a huge problem, if you don’t allow people to advertise.
6. Increase goal size by 10% if there are still to few goals.
If all of the above rule changes are passed, soccer has the chance to be saved, hopefully with 5-10 goals per game, else, I see the loss of interest in this potentially great game continuing… Would like to have your thoughts.
June 19, 2010, 10:37 amBrazilian Soccer Fan says:
As a matter of fact, Epstein’s suggestions change the game to suit US peculiarities and tastes. You just don’t see it because you are American too and obviously don’t get the game either.
June 20, 2010, 12:57 amAnd, yes, many people explained exactly why his ideas are bumb. Just read the comments and you will see.
I don’t get football, baseball, or golf. I don’t see anything fun about these games. Maybe if they would look a little more like soccer, I would find them interesting. I have several suggestions for their improvement. Wanna hear them?
Epstein's Mother says:
Like high kicking, low scoring, and ties!
June 22, 2010, 7:28 pm