Football (soccer): the offsides rule is that much of a sacred cow?

Cafe Society
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I don’t think so, really; they knew it was the correct play. But there’s a difference between accepting something as a perfectly valid tactic, and liking it when you’ve paid, as some of my friends did, about $400 for your ticket (especially given the quality of the match that preceded the knee). Playing down the clock by running the ball into the corner is common in football (and does take some skill, unlike the more annoying forms of timewasting), but it gets roundly whistled then, too.

As for your earlier question, I don’t think football (or indeed any well-developed sport) falls under either category. Individual matches do, but I don’t see that a given sport with few or no remaining identifiable “cheap” tactics available can be considered intrinsically offensive or defensive.

Usram’s point earlier about granularity of scoring is about as close as we’re going to get to a characterisation of the debate, I think. But even then, the debate over whether finer or coarser granularity is best seems meaningless to me; it’s simply something that defines the character of the game. There is no better or worse; it’s just one of those things that make football what it is, just as cricket’s accumulation of hundreds of individual low-scoring contests is what makes it what it is, or NFL’s heavily possession-based mechanics characterise it.

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[QUOTE=Ellis Dee]

I have no idea which category soccer falls under.
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Soccer doesn’t fall into either category. A particular game might though. There are low scoring games in which it’s 0-0 because of great defense, amazing acrobatic saves, clearing balls off the goal-line, and all sorts of other things. There are also games in which teams should score, but they just suck too much for it. Mis-hitting a sitter or missing on a free header, blowing break-away opportunities and such. There’s no blanket rule.

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[QUOTE=Usram]
I realise that non-granular scoring has its advantages when it comes to excitement, sudden changes of fortune etc.
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By George, I think he’s GOT IT!!! :smiley:
If the concept that higher scoring equated to better, more fun to watch games was true, then everyone would prefer to watch the NBA, where the average score is between 80 and 100 for each team. And if you say, “well, I prefer football to basketball,” then I offer for your consideration the Australian Football League, where the average score is over 70 per team, and they aren’t wearing pads and STILL tackle each other like they can’t be hurt… :eek:

Face it. Americans don’t like soccer mostly because it’s not what they grew up watching. And playing it rarely translates to fandom for the simple reason that they aren’t inculcated to the game as a sport while they kick and follow around the field Saturdays from ages 5 to 11. If you don’t grow up liking a game, you aren’t going to find it that interesting when you grow up without having something to help you create a love for the game (like having a child who plays it at a highly competitive level, or moving to a place where it is played in a live or die atmosphere).

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[QUOTE=Ellis Dee]
That was as ignorant as any idea proposed in this thread to change soccer.

Even moreso if you factor in the Miracle at the Meadowlands.
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I fail to see how it’s ignorant. Yes, it’s a legitimate tactic. Yes, it makes sense. Is it terribly fun to watch? No.

I don’t like it when teams “Colby Jones” (always what I’ve heard it called) in soccer and sit in the opposing corners. I don’t think either should be made illegal, but they aren’t as enjoyable as teams moving the ball.
(And a note to my college team: when you need to keep moving the ball for a first down to run the clock out - DON’T RUN A PITCH PLAY! Hand it off, or run a keeper. Geez.)

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[QUOTE=Ellis Dee]
Way to make me hate Europeans. Nicely done.
[/QUOTE]
Why would you hate Europeans? I’m sure I wasn’t referring to you in the above quote. Unless you consider yourself an unrefined American who likes Velveeta and Wonder Bread??? And, by the way, I am an American. I’m just amused by other Americans who want to basterdize soccer into some unrecognizable form that could only interest a fan who has no real interest and/or understanding of soccer in the first place.

I recall a post in a previous thread about Americanizing soccer that basically said; “If we just move it indoors to a gym, let them use their hands and make the goals round, horizontal and about two feet across and hang 'em about ten feet in the air, THEN we could really get into this soccer thing!!”
If we had some ham, we could have some ham & cheese… if we had some cheese.

So silly.

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[QUOTE=Dead Badger]
Well, you are wrong. You have not. You have simply reiterated, “over and over”, your utterly inane suggestion that more goals would be better. And frankly, I don’t give a shit any more. I give up. Fuck it. Other people have been willing to suggest game alterations, and they’ve been answered with genuine interpretations of how their suggestions would affect the match. I’m just sick of countering this utterly insipid insistence that somehow the numbers just aren’t enough. It betrays an almost total incomprehension of what sport is, and what scoring’s purpose is. You have ignored every substantive point that has been put to you, and resorted instead to an utterly annoying insistence that we are somehow simply resistant to change, therefore you should be taken seriously. Well, sod that.
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Just what are you going on about? I’ve said several times that I don’t have the answer and there might not actually be a way to do this without changing the game too much. I’m fine with things as they are. I think if they could find a way to give us another goal or two a game without affecting the game too much this would be a good thing. I’m not suggesting that soccer is unwatchable. Only that it would be even better if the scoring was increased a bit.

[QUOTE=Dead Badger]
Why? For the love of God, why? Why would you want to guarantee a result? Isn’t the whole point of sport that there’s an even contest of talents? What the fuck is the point of defending if someone has decided that that’s not enough fun, and that defensive teams must automatically lose?

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I don’t. Don’t quite know where you got that from. I suppose I would like to guarantee a win to the team that plays better soccer (say, a team that dominates the run of play). And I do believe is that certain defensive tactics are boooooring. And that quite possible the balance between offense and defense is tilted too far to the defense. And I don’t know where you get the idea I think there’s something is “fundamentally wrong”. When did I say that?

[QUOTE=Dead Badger]
YES! THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I’M SAYING! But where you completely and utterly and quite unbelievably fail to get the point is that this NECESSARILY ENTAILS A DECREASE IN THE SKILL REQUIRED TO ATTACK. And you said you LIKE attack. You said you’re EXCITED by it. So why the haemorrhaging fuck would you want to make it more rubbish? Why, O God why, do you apparently want to make it possible for every dickhead who can lump the ball goalwards to score a bloody goal?
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Wow. Talk about building a straw man. What I see is a game where some great attacking skill isn’t getting rewarded because defending is too easy. Sure, it might take a bit less skill, but I think shifting the balance a bit will continue to reward skill (just not quite as much) while forcing more skillful defending. Plus, goals are exciting. Really they are. Adding one or tow to a match will increase the excitement without devaluing goals all that much. Throw in a greater possibility for lead changes and you come up with a more entertaining match.

[QUOTE=Dead Badger]

Hey hey! What’s more exciting in NFL; a 13-10 mudfest, or a 53-47 TDfest?
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You do realize there’s a huge difference between a 53-47 football (American) score and a 3-2 soccer score? Right? One game has a dozen scores and the other is less than half that. Another straw man I guess.

[QUOTE=GorillaMan]
I’m not fucking weaseling out of anything. I gave you an answer, which you didn’t like, but either because it might sink in the second time or because it’ll just piss you off more: NO, THE SCORE DOES NOT IN ITSELF TELL ME HOW EXCITING THE GAME WAS.
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Duh. Piss me off? I’m not the one shouting. Do you think 0-0 games are, in general, equally as exciting as 3-2 games? Say, if you were to grade all games in entertainment level, would games with a 0-0 score or games with 3-2 score have a higher grade?

Yeah, I know some 0-0 games are riveting and some 3-2 games are dreadful. Yes, I know you can’t predict it ahead of time. But really, don’t you think there would be some differentiation of excitement levels?

Pretty telling how no one wants to answer this question. Along with my other questions for that matter.

[QUOTE=Usram]
I think the idea is that by increasing the granularity of the scoring, you iron out some of the arbitrariness of soccer’s scoring. Goals/baskets/runs/touchdowns/tries often happen by luck as much as judgment. A sport in which scores are less likely to happen is therefore more prone to unfair results. I realise that non-granular scoring has its advantages when it comes to excitement, sudden changes of fortune etc.
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Yeah. I can’t really prove this, but I do get the feeling this is true. Luck is too big a factor in soccer. I think this is why I don’t think rewarding the attack a bit more will have a huge negative impact on attacking skill.

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[QUOTE=Yookeroo]
Pretty telling how no one wants to answer this question. Along with my other questions for that matter.
[/QUOTE]

Very telling, in fact. Just not in the way you think.

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Gee, I don’t know - maybe it was the bit where you said you wanted to “eliminate” teams dominating play and failing to win. That, to me, says that in a situation you perceive (with your massive footballing brain) as being “dominated” by one side, you want to “eliminate” situations when they lose. That’s what the word “eliminate” means. It’s a worrying state of affairs when not only do you not understand what anyone else is saying, but you don’t understand what you’re saying, either.

[QUOTE=Yookeroo]
Pretty telling how no one wants to answer this question. Along with my other questions for that matter.
[/QUOTE]
It’s been answered so many times it’s quite mindboggling that you continue to repeat this. I myself have answered it three times, in the same way, and yet still you cling to it like a drowning man to an uninflatable sheep. It is sodden and baaing and wants to go home. Let it go.

But then, I see you’re still leadenly repeating your “more goals is good” mantra, so there’s little actual hope.

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[QUOTE=Dead Badger]
Gee, I don’t know - maybe it was the bit where you said you wanted to “eliminate” teams dominating play and failing to win. That, to me, says that in a situation you perceive (with your massive footballing brain) as being “dominated” by one side, you want to “eliminate” situations when they lose. That’s what the word “eliminate” means. It’s a worrying state of affairs when not only do you not understand what anyone else is saying, but you don’t understand what you’re saying, either.
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But you’re saying I want to guarantee that the defensive team loses. I never said that (you have been quite good at building straw men). What I want to try guarantee is that the weaker team loses. And if a team is getting dominated, it’s the weaker team. You’re the one who’s twisted my words. One problem I see in soccer is that’s it’s too easy for the inferior team to get a positive result.

[QUOTE=Dead Badger]
It’s been answered so many times it’s quite mindboggling that you continue to repeat this. I myself have answered it three times, in the same way,
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You’ve avoided answering it three times. Leadenly avoided it.

[QUOTE=Dead Badger]
But then, I see you’re still leadenly repeating your “more goals is good” mantra, so there’s little actual hope.
[/QUOTE]

Well, I do think more goals would be good. That’s really not such an outlandish opinion. Seems to be a pretty offensive one for some reason though.

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[QUOTE=Yookeroo]
But you’re saying I want to guarantee that the defensive team loses. I never said that (you have been quite good at building straw men). What I want to try guarantee is that the weaker team loses. And if a team is getting dominated, it’s the weaker team.
[/quote]

This is where you simply fail to understand the sport. Playing defensively and successfully is not domination. It’s a dangerous tactic to do this when you haven’t got ahead, because just a single error will punish you heavily. And supporters of both sides know this, which is why it can make for such exciting football.

But we’ve told you this over and over already, so I doubt it will sink in this time, either. You don’t support Narridge, by any chance, do you?

Two points. The first is that Dead Badger did provide an answer to your moronic question four posts and five hours after you typed it. The second is that you initially phrased it as "But ask yourselves this: without knowing anything about the match except the final score,… Is that not a rhetorical question, where you should not expecting an answer yourself?

Oh, hang on, because of your whining, you did get an extensive answer later on:

[QUOTE=Dead Badger]
Probably the 3-2 match, but you know it is more likely to have been special precisely because it is relatively rare; if 3-2 matches were made ten a penny, it’d no longer be an indication of an entertaining game. Believe it or not, thrilling 0-0 draws do happen, even if they’re rare. Sometimes teams compete for 90 minutes, and go away with the honours even. And for that matter, 0-0 draws aren’t as common as all that - check out the number of goals scored in the Premiership this weekend, for example. Arsenal recently stuck seven past (an admittedly dire) Slavia Prague, and Chelsea tonked Man City 6-0 over the weekend. Is this really a sport that has problems with scoring?
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But that doesn’t count, for some reason. Maybe because it’s not the ‘Oh, I see now, we’re all stupid for thinking we might want to watch a match and see how exciting it is before coming to any conclusions’ answer you thought you would so cunningly elicit.

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[QUOTE=Yookeroo]
But you’re saying I want to guarantee that the defensive team loses. I never said that (you have been quite good at building straw men). What I want to try guarantee is that the weaker team loses. And if a team is getting dominated, it’s the weaker team. You’re the one who’s twisted my words. One problem I see in soccer is that’s it’s too easy for the inferior team to get a positive result.
[/QUOTE]

Define “too easy”?

If the stronger team ALWAYS wins, there is no reason to play the game. We hear this all the time when we talk about American football, with announcers regularly blathering on about how “that’s why we play the game!” or “on any given Saturday …” It’s precisely the fact that lesser skilled teams can pull the upset that makes watching a sporting contest interesting, and when lesser skilled teams/players don’t win with at least some significant regularity, we tend to tune the sport out (see, for example, how mind-numbingly boring it is to watch Roger Federer these days).

So, we take it for a given that upsets are what football and sports are about at some level. How many do you need?

In the English Premier League last year, the first place team managed a 78% record (89 out of 114 points), and the last place team managed a 24% record (only 28 out of 114). The table is pretty well graduated from top to bottom. By comparison, the worst team in MLB this year managed 40% wins, and the best teams managed not quite 60%. The NBA last year spread from 81% to 26%. The NFL had a spread from 87% to 12%. Now, if you ask me, any professional sport that has a team like last year’s Oakland Raiders isn’t inherently better to watch than a sport that has a team like the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, so I’m not sure that the ability of underdogs to produce wins has much to do with anything. But clearly, soccer isn’t just bristling with undeserving winners… :wink:

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[QUOTE=DSYoungEsq]
But clearly, soccer isn’t just bristling with undeserving winners… :wink:
[/QUOTE]

In fact, that’s the thing that finds soccer in general and the EPL in particular interesting to me: watching a world-class team overcome an assload of dumb luck in favor of the opponent. In a baseball game, one very good team could give up a big home run when the starting pitcher stays in for 1/3 of an inning too long and hangs a curveball, and then the same very good team could very well struggle to get back into the game, just because the ebb and flow of the game works against them. Whereas in soccer, even though it’s theoretically easy for an underdog to score a crushing goal with just a bit of luck, the world’s best teams consistently show an ability to come back and win the game anyway. That’s fun to watch. When you know enough about the game to appreciate what the defense is doing, it’s a blast to watch really great defenders shut down really good attacking chances.

It’s also quite a bit of fun to watch two average (for a world-class league like the EPL, I mean) teams on a day where both attacks get a lot of lucky angles and neither defense is quite good enough to put a stop to it. The first example I can think of is a game between (I think) West Ham and Fulham last year that ended in a 3-3 draw. It’s a different kind of fun, though, but it’s those kind of games which might very well entice a (say) basketball fan into watching soccer. Really, they’re not all that different, except that dominating offense rules the one and ensures job security for the best defenders, while dominating defense rules the other and ensures job security for the best attackers.

ETA: It also helps to see the game live, since you can get a better sense of how an attack develops gradually across the width of the field, how a defense works together to dig in its heels, and how momentum builds gradually throughout the game. A brief primer on the game itself helps too for Americans who aren’t incredibly familiar with how it works; I liked Soccer for Dummies, myself.

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[QUOTE=fetus]
ETA: It also helps to see the game live, since you can get a better sense of how an attack develops gradually across the width of the field, how a defense works together to dig in its heels, and how momentum builds gradually throughout the game.
[/QUOTE]

Of course, I couldn’t agree more. And also, if resigned to TV, I paradaxically prefer matches from some smaller stadiums, which can give a better view of the defence holding their a line, of the speed of attack, and so on. Not to mention offside decisions :wink:

Then again, when I go to matches I stand behind the goal and swear at referees, so what do I know.

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[QUOTE=GorillaMan]
Of course, I couldn’t agree more. And also, if resigned to TV, I paradaxically prefer matches from some smaller stadiums, which can give a better view of the defence holding their a line, of the speed of attack, and so on. Not to mention offside decisions :wink:

Then again, when I go to matches I stand behind the goal and swear at referees, so what do I know.
[/QUOTE]

I was lucky to become interested in soccer just as the WUSA formed, and luckier still that they placed a team in San Diego. I shared season tickets with my best friend at the time, who was a pretty decent goalie herself, and we went to every home game. Since those were the best women players in the world, it really helped me grow to love a sport which, before, I had been struggling to maintain interest in based only on my desire to rebel against my culture’s sporting norms.

Strange as it may seem, the game has not been the same for me since the death of the WUSA. That was my little piece of World Cup soccer, and going to any other games available in San Diego at any level seems like a waste of time now.

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Oh, Gorillaman, could we possibly have a few words from you on the unassailability of a 2-0 lead? :stuck_out_tongue:

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[QUOTE=Yookeroo]
You’ve avoided answering it three times. Leadenly avoided it.
[/QUOTE]
Maybe your Socratic method just isn’t quite up to snuff. You don’t get to huff that people aren’t answering you just because their answers aren’t the ones you wanted.

The answer to your quasi-rhetorical question, even were it precisely what you desire, does not support your conclusion that more goals are, above all else, a good thing. I can say it no better than I already have:

Also, just because people can read your words and interpret their meaning does not make them guilty of raising strawmen. And if you can not see the implications of your own arguments, that is still no-one’s fault but your own.

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[QUOTE=Malacandra]
Oh, Gorillaman, could we possibly have a few words from you on the unassailability of a 2-0 lead? :stuck_out_tongue:
[/QUOTE]

Fuck off

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Yes, my apologies, but THIS IS A ZOMBIE THREAD!!

But in light of what happened to the United States against Brazil, I just had to drag it back out to sigh over this post. :frowning:
Mods: you may want to clean this up with a closure soon. :o