# It's time, once again, for Americans to tell the world how to fix soccer. **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [June 14, 2014, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742 "2014-06-14T00:06:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![PaulParkhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PaulParkhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulParkhead)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/181 "2014-07-15T23:30:38Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Do diehard fans leaving a tied game go celebrate, drink away their sorrows, or what? So weird to me. They might - it depends on context. My Scottish friends and I celebrated our 0-0 tie with the Netherlands in Euro 1996 like we had just won the damn tournament. I believe “Nil nil to Scotland” was the chant. The reason was, of course, that we expected the Dutch to hand us our asses. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/182 "2014-07-16T02:50:03Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > When people suggest that the score should be 7-6, then people who really love soccer are rightfully aghast. “Rightfully aghast”?!? 😕 In basketball, a game beloved worldwide both in the U.S. and elsewhere, teams run up and down the field of play, changing possession of the ball and trying to get it into a goal–something they do a combined hundred times or so per game. But doing so thirteen times in soccer would be just wild, crazy, and awful? Why? What would be so terrible about it? So, each goal is devalued–but you get more of them! And the winning goal late in the game still has the same value as ever. This is just stubborn traditionalism for its own sake, nothing more. > [@PaulParkhead](#): > > They might - it depends on context. My Scottish friends and I celebrated our 0-0 tie with the Netherlands in Euro 1996 like we had just won the damn tournament. I believe “Nil nil to Scotland” was the chant. > > The reason was, of course, that we expected the Dutch to hand us our asses. And what about the scenario where your team is strong, and so is the other team? (This is considered the most exciting possibility in American sports: for instance, two football teams with 10-0 records, only one of whom will remain undefeated by the end of the game, barring a fluke tie.) A clash of the titans, and it ends in a 0-0 tie. Now how do you feel? “Meh”? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/183 "2014-07-16T02:59:12Z")
Love me some [Frank Deford:](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/sports-july-dec06-worldcup_07-10/) > [@](#): > > FRANK DEFORD, Senior Writer, Sports Illustrated: No, Ray. I’m sorry, I hate to be the bad guy, but we’ve been hearing the same tune being played for 40 years now. > > It started when Pele and the other stars came to the states in the 1970s, and everybody said, “Now soccer’s here.” And then the kids started playing. They said, “Wait until they grow up. Wait until they grow up. They’ll love soccer.” And they grew up, and they didn’t love soccer. They walked away. > > They said, in 1994, when the World Cup was here, they said, “That will turn the corner.” In 1999, the women won the World Cup for the United States, and everybody said, “Boy, that’s terrific. That’s fabulous.” And in two or three years, women’s soccer pro league had died. > > And here we go again. This is a blip on the scene, and it will be gone. This is like the Ice Capades come to town, and everybody goes to see the ice show. And a week later, it’s all forgotten. > > […]Americans have proven over and over again that they don’t like the sport. There’s not enough scoring. There are too many ties. It’s a very frustrating game, too defensively oriented for us. > > And it doesn’t have the proficiency that sports do that use your hands. It’s totally bizarre when you think about it that a game would be played with feet and head rather than hands. I mean, this makes no sense whatsoever. > > And you cannot be proficient in such a game, and Americans reject that. What is called brilliant in soccer is an incomplete pass in football. And the sport itself is over-dramatized, with the falling down. There’s entirely too many, a high percentage of scores because of penalties, which are very dubious. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/184 "2014-07-16T03:14:58Z")
I’ve never understood why offsides couldn’t be made more like hockey. For example, no one on offense can be inside the penalty box before the ball is in the box. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/185 "2014-07-16T03:40:29Z")
Double Post! ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/186 "2014-07-16T03:42:38Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Love me some [Frank Deford:](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/sports-july-dec06-worldcup_07-10/) So in your attempts to get soccer fans to get their sport to change you quite Frank Deford, a well known soccer basher, and if not Public Enemy #1, close to it, for American soccer fans for 20 years? Of course you realize that this interview is from 2006 and the ratings for this year’s World Cup kind of shows Deford to be incorrect that Americans don’t like the sport, right? Proven over and over again that Deford is incorrect, even ;). (We may argue that MLS’s attendance numbers and lucrative new TV deal also show that as well, but that’s a bit more of a complicated discussion… would include EPL games on NBC as well and how that all plays in) I don’t think you are really doing this changing people’s minds thing very well. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/187 "2014-07-16T03:45:49Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I’ve never understood why offsides couldn’t be made more like hockey. For example, no one on offense can be inside the penalty box before the ball is in the box. It wouldn’t be much of a disincentive for offensive players to hang out in the other teams side. They’d likely hang out around the 18 yard box anyways if offsides didn’t existing at all. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/188 "2014-07-16T04:51:02Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > “Rightfully aghast”?!? 😕 In basketball, a game beloved worldwide both in the U.S. and elsewhere, teams run up and down the field of play, changing possession of the ball and trying to get it into a goal–something they do a combined hundred times or so per game. But doing so thirteen times in soccer would be just wild, crazy, and awful? Why? What would be so terrible about it? So, each goal is devalued–but you get more of them! The difference between suggesting increasing scoring and suggesting ways to reduce diving is that soccer fans LIKE the scoring the way it is, but soccer fans dislike diving. I can’t PROVE to you in some objective fashion that soccer-as-it-is would be better than soccer-with-3-times-as-many-goals. But it would certainly be VASTLY different, in a way that would alter its character far more than goal line technology, or instant replays, or a replacement for PKs. And I think that’s a case where “it’s already the most popular sport in the world by far” becomes a relevant data point in that soccer clearly gets a lot of things right. This is a case where Americans are viewing soccer through the lens of “well, this the 5th or 6th most popular sport, it’s constantly struggling to be one of the big boys, clearly SOMETHING is seriously in need of fixing” while the rest of the world is viewing it through the lens of “this is by far the most popular sport here. And in a huge number of other countries around the world. It’s awesome. We love it. So… what tiny little details about it can be improved?”. It’s also definitely the case that wanting more scoring, so as to increase the spread between teams of varying quality, is something that makes the most sense in the context of something like the World Cup, as opposed to an actual league. And the vast majority of top-level soccer games played in the world are league games. Which definitely makes the complaint seem somewhat provincial. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/189 "2014-07-16T06:08:55Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > So in your attempts to get soccer fans to get their sport to change you quite Frank Deford, a well known soccer basher, and if not Public Enemy #1, close to it, for American soccer fans for 20 years? Have you allowed this “Public Enemy #1” stuff to keep you from enjoying his delightful musings in general? Because if so, that is \*really \*sad. BTW, those burgeoning figures for attendance and TV ratings look to me to mostly be because the Latino population in the U.S. is growing so explosively. Which I’m not complaining about, mind you: I’m a Democrat! But the point is, I don’t see much evidence that it is increasingly catching on here among cultural groups that weren’t into it before. And his line about an “incomplete pass” is hilarious, and cuts to the bone. > [@MaxTheVool](#): > > And I think that’s a case where “it’s already the most popular sport in the world by far” becomes a relevant data point in that soccer clearly gets a lot of things right. Are you sure it’s more popular than tennis “by far”? I tend to find myself admiring a lot of things about Europeans, and their support of pro tennis is one of them. Tennis edges out the NFL for me as the televised sport I’d take with me to a desert island if I had to choose. Strange then that soccer doesn’t fit my Europhile ways at all: I think a televised soccer game would only be able to beat out infomercials, or maybe the “Real Housewives” franchise. ETA: If Deford and I are wrong and soccer does someday become as popular as the NFL is now, I will at least be able to enjoy being one of those arch liberal intellectuals who delights in noting how assiduously they avoid televised sports. (Now, I’m an arch liberal intellectual who feels somewhat sheepish around other arch liberal intellectuals at times, due to my NFL addiction.) ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/190 "2014-07-16T08:12:53Z")
The last two World Cup finals have been won by a goal in the second period of extra time. The better team won, the loser had opportunities in regular time to win it. Both matches were exciting, edge of your seat stuff. The 7-1 semi final was interesting on due to the fact it was a train wreck in slow motion, not for the quality of play (at least 5 goals should not have occurred). Why are they boring? ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/191 "2014-07-16T08:43:13Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Disagree. Most things in sports can and should be measured by stats. Otherwise its a toss-up between luck and skill. Anything can be measured by stats. But not every stat is meaningful. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > Sports should require more skill and less luck. Somebody who’s never played a sport, for example, shouldn’t be able to waltz onto a field and be good at it. Anyone who can kick a soccer ball with a degree of accuracy can get it past a goalie on a penalty kick. If the goalie jumps the wrong way, its almost a guarantee score. On the other hand, it would be difficult for even someone off the streets who’s good at basketball score against a typical NBA player, because that depends more on skill and less on luck. With scores being 0-0, its difficult to say that the defense did its job more or that basically the game is too hard to score on But on the other hand, even I can score with free throws now and again, something that is used as an equivalent to the penalty in Basketball. I think you also are ignoring the skill on the goalie’s part to read where the player is going to kick it. That’s something that definitely sets non-players apart from normal players. It simply isn’t as easy to score for a non-player as you seem to think it is. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > To take an absurd example, if you shrank the goal by half, scoring would drop even less. Is that good defense? Or simply a matter of the game being weighted more towards defense than offense. It seems like any sport like this should be more evenly balanced between defense and offense, to take the luck factor out of it. I’m glad soccer has some defensive stats that I didn’t know about, but to me, its still weighted too much towards defense But the basic problem still is there: this is the way everyone else likes it. Sure, make the goals bigger in MLS, but be prepared for your team to do poorly in the World Cup. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > I think that’s simply a factor of the game being designed that way and people’s bias towards the familiar. There’s nothing intrinsically better about having a tie contribute to the ultimate winner of a tournament, but there is an objectively definitive quality of having a clear winner. I think soccer would benefit from that Actually, we grow up playing the sport, so we know what it is like to be a small goalie in a big goal (which is pretty much equivalent to a bigger goal with an adult goalie). There are also variants of football, for example five-a-side, that have different sized goals. There’s also when you find two trees vaguely close together, jumpers for goalposts etc etc It is nothing to do with the familiar. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > My point is that luck plays too much of a factor. It should play less. Penalty kicks are such things that factor mostly on luck and less on skill. De-emphasizing the luck portion would increase the value of the skill portion, which I believe would improve the sport Frankly, I hate penalties. I think they should never be used to decide a match and referees should have more at their power (for example video replays) to ensure that only deserved penalties are given. But to be honest, I’m losing your point here. You seemed to be arguing firstly that goals should be increased in size, but then penalties are too easy to score. Surely making the goal bigger will make it even easier to score. What is it that you actually want? > [@YogSosoth](#): > > None of those people would be reduced in importance with the changes I’ve suggested. In fact, my rule changes would increase their importance and decrease the luck factor Yeah, I’m still not following you. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > It may be, I don’t completely disagree with that because I don’t know much about soccer. But I know what I like and its not a 0 score And this is the basic problem and it is something we won’t agree on. I love cricket, I grew up playing cricket. In a cricket test match you can play for five days and still have a draw and you know what? People still love the game. To sound a bit up my own arse, it is about the journey, not the destination. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > So if the teams didn’t gain points, you would agree that those games are pointless? But they do gain points. That’s like saying as you don’t get points for corners, corners are pointless. It is just being stupid to try and “win”. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > I’m not saying doing things differently is the only way, just that its a better way because it takes less of the luck and inherent bias towards defense out of the equation and evens things up. Having a fairer, more balanced game is more watchable for me and ultimately better “Better” in your opinion. There was an average of 2.67 goals per game in this World Cup. There was an average of 2.77 per game in the English Premier League last season (and for the record, only 6.8% were penalties). The idea that football is a game burdened by goalless draws is comically incorrect AND EVEN THEN goalless draws are not automatically bad games. I’m sorry if you can’t see that and the only enjoyment you get is seeing the ball hitting the back of the net, but that’s just the way it is. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > There is ALWAYS a better team. Given the infinite possible permutations of the universe, any one team or person is always better than another. Soccer’s rules just makes it harder to distinguish between the two 21% of games last season in the English Premier League ended in a draw. Not always a scoreless draw, but still a draw. So 79% of the time the rules of the game worked out who was “best” on the day, with no need for extra time or penalty shootouts. Football is doing fine. I’d also disagree that one team is always “better” by a margin that says that they deserve the three points. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > A clean-sheet what? A clean sheet is when you stop the other time scoring for the entire game. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > Are you against any changes to soccer or just specifically the changes I’ve suggested? There have actually been changes over the years. Some in my lifetime (I am 40) that I can remember include: The [backpass rule](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpass_rule) Various tweaks to offside, including changing from “two opposition players between the player and the goal line” to the player being able to be level with the second one, giving the attackers a bit of an advantage. A lot of changes regarding what can be done in tackles to try and minimise the number of bad injuries. Increase in the number of players substitutes can be chosen from. Increase in number of substitutes from two to three. So football and football fans are not against change. It is just that the idea of changing the goal size to allow more goals, purely because apparently some people from one country get bored if there aren’t ten goals a game, is ridiculous. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > My follow up would be that if you are against any changes, does that mean you think the game is perfect the way it is? It never needs to change? And if its simply that you believe my suggestions are bad but are open to changes, can you admit that your objections are simply your own biases and my suggestions would not be detrimental to the game, only detrimental to your personal enjoyment of it? And as shown, football fans are not against change. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > Regarding scoring, you seem to place a lot of emphasis on defenses keeping the score low. Do you consider that 7-1 GER/BRA game to be a bad game because one team scored too much? And if scoring, on average, went up by let’s say 5 goals per side so 7-6 games are not uncommon, would you do something to decrease scoring to your own lower preferences? Of course not. It was interesting because everyone could see that Brazil were poor in defence. It was evident from the very first game and was quite the talking point. When they finally came up against decent teams they got shown up for what they really were, a very poor team defensively that struggles up front when one specific player is not there. And what really made it exciting is that those sort of games are uncommon. They stand out. People remember them. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > Lastly, it seems that you value ties above only as a means to determine an ultimate champion. Is that a correct assessment of your views? Like, for instance, if ties could be had in a tournament and no single final winner crowned, would you still celebrate the possibility of ties as a part of the sport or would you rather do away with ties permanently? I’m pretty sure every tournament, both league and knockout, has a method of deciding who was the actual winner. Here’s what the English Premier League, as an example, has to say on the matter: [http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/fans/faqs/who-wins-league-if-teams-finish-on-same-points.html](http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/fans/faqs/who-wins-league-if-teams-finish-on-same-points.html) ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/192 "2014-07-16T08:43:51Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Somebody who’s never played a sport, for example, shouldn’t be able to waltz onto a field and be good at it. Anyone who can kick a soccer ball with a degree of accuracy can get it past a goalie on a penalty kick. …and anyone who can swing a golf club can get the ball in the hole, or score a free-throw etc etc. That says nothing about the skill involved in doing it repeatedly, accurately and under pressure. Penalties rarely decide games. They are the least worse way currently devised to allow one team to advance. They are arbitrary in the way that pretty much all sports are. Come up with a better way to break the deadlock by all means but changing the whole game in order to have less (infrequent) ties seems rather silly. > [@](#): > > A clean-sheet what? A “clean-sheet” is when a team does not concede a goal. > [@](#): > > Are you against any changes to soccer or just specifically the changes I’ve suggested? My follow up would be that if you are against any changes, does that mean you think the game is perfect the way it is? It never needs to change? And if its simply that you believe my suggestions are bad but are open to changes, can you admit that your objections are simply your own biases and my suggestions would not be detrimental to the game, only detrimental to your personal enjoyment of it? I’m all for tweaks and changes where required, I like the thought of video refs, manager or captain appeals, citing commissions, goal-line tech, removing the hassling of officials, heavy sanctions for diving and simulation, the foam-line for free kicks, perhaps extra sub for extra time, using corners, on-target shots or fouls/cards instead of penalties to decide who goes through in knock-out games…I’m not a luddite, I’ve just never…never, thought that low-scoring was a problem. I don’t know anyone outside of the USA who does. It is a feature, it is what keeps a goal something rather special. More goals necessarily diminishes each goal individually. > [@](#): > > Regarding scoring, you seem to place a lot of emphasis on defenses keeping the score low. Do you consider that 7-1 GER/BRA game to be a bad game because one team scored too much? The score tells you nothing about how “good” or “bad” the game was. The final was a 0-0 thriller in normal time and a single, beautiful goal decided it. The 7-1 game was the highest scoring game but pretty much no-one I know would say it was the best or most entertaining. > [@](#): > > And if scoring, on average, went up by let’s say 5 goals per side so 7-6 games are not uncommon, would you do something to decrease scoring to your own lower preferences? Yes, and if scoring declined to only 0.5 goals per game I’d also act. Both scenarios are equally (un)likely given the game in its modern state. Look back over the history of football and in 130 years the highest number of goals/game was 4.63 (currently about 3) and this was an aberration at the start of the game in the 1880/90’s. You reckon it’ll just jump to over 10? You seem to be searching for solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. You can break a stalemate in so many other ways before you have to start fundamentally changing the game itself. > [@](#): > > Lastly, it seems that you value ties above only as a means to determine an ultimate champion. Is that a correct assessment of your views? Like, for instance, if ties could be had in a tournament and no single final winner crowned, would you still celebrate the possibility of ties as a part of the sport or would you rather do away with ties permanently? I don’t know what you are trying to say here. In a league structure a tie is a valid result, each team gets a point and goals scored/conceded are included as part of the final standings calculation. They aren’t valued as highly as wins obviously (a win is three times as valuable). There aren’t any ties in a knockout game as one team always advances, One team always wins. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/193 "2014-07-16T09:01:05Z")
:DOh, One of these days I’ll learn to read to the end of the thread before replying. Too late to edit but basically…what\*\* Amanset\*\* said, I could have ditto’d that post and saved myself some work. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/194 "2014-07-16T09:54:16Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > This has not been a problem for fans of Canadian or Aussie football, despite much smaller populations. I’m cool with the idea, just be aware that you’ll either not be able to enter the World Cup or you’ll will probably lose badly due to finding it harder to score with the different goal size. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > Do diehard fans leaving a tied game go celebrate, drink away their sorrows, or what? So weird to me. They go away knowing that they enjoyed the game. I’m British, we’d just go down the pub anyway. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/195 "2014-07-16T09:58:08Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > “Rightfully aghast”?!? 😕 In basketball, a game beloved worldwide both in the U.S. and elsewhere, teams run up and down the field of play, changing possession of the ball and trying to get it into a goal–something they do a combined hundred times or so per game. But doing so thirteen times in soccer would be just wild, crazy, and awful? Why? What would be so terrible about it? So, each goal is devalued–but you get more of them! And the winning goal late in the game still has the same value as ever. This is just stubborn traditionalism for its own sake, nothing more. Bollocks is it. As I have already stated in this thread (I think 😉 ), I just cannot get into Basketball precisely because they score so much. It seems like more of an event when someone doesn’t score, which to me is just the wrong way round. I actually really like Ice Hockey, Baseball and American Football. It helps that I have American friends here, so we gather to watch games. Hell, Stockholm play baseball about a two minute walk from my flat, so I often go watch them play and down some beers in the sun. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > And what about the scenario where your team is strong, and so is the other team? (This is considered the most exciting possibility in American sports: for instance, two football teams with 10-0 records, only one of whom will remain undefeated by the end of the game, barring a fluke tie.) A clash of the titans, and it ends in a 0-0 tie. Now how do you feel? “Meh”? Sometimes they end as a 3-3 too (or more, hell in the World Cup qualifying Sweden came back from 4-0 down against Germany to draw 4-4). You just seem to be forgetting about those as it “helps” your argument. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/196 "2014-07-16T09:59:51Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I’ve never understood why offsides couldn’t be made more like hockey. For example, no one on offense can be inside the penalty box before the ball is in the box. I fail to see why that would be better. And I say that as someone who watches hockey (I live in Sweden, where hockey is more or less tied with football as the national sport). ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/197 "2014-07-16T10:03:23Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > :DOh, One of these days I’ll learn to read to the end of the thread before replying. > Too late to edit but basically…what\*\* Amanset\*\* said, I could have ditto’d that post and saved myself some work. Pretty sure my boss would have rather I’d been doing some work too 😉 ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/198 "2014-07-16T10:08:58Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > It is just that the idea of changing the goal size to allow more goals, purely because apparently some people from one country get bored if there aren’t ten goals a game, is ridiculous. It just seems like you all think it’s ridiculous because it’s not what you are used to. If you say “I prefer it the way it is”, I can’t argue with that (although I can point out that people tend to be reflexively against change, for example when new technological wrinkles are introduced to their lives, but eventually most people realise the new way is better). But if you say the change would be “ridiculous”, I can challenge you to show how it is ridiculous rather than just not what you desire. I mean, putting water hazards in the field of play would be ridiculous. Making the soccer ball as big as a beach ball would be ridiculous. Making the goal slightly bigger can’t inherently be ridiculous. I would suggest 27’ X 9’, preserving the exact same shape; but up to now I never stated a specific size. What if it was changed to 24’3" X 8’1", would that be ridiculous too? Other than it being such a slight change that it’s pointless to bother with? When researching the history of the goal size, I see that for the first few decades after fixing it at 24 feet wide, there was no height limit (kind of like with field goal kicking in football). Maybe they should go back to that. In any case, in the process of Googling this, I happened across a SDMB thread from five years ago discussing the low scoring in soccer. One poster (a moderator, even) made very nearly the [same exact suggestion](http://http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11742288&postcount=11) I am being ridiculed for: > [@](#): > > Make the goal four feet wider, and voilà, soccer is no longer the Worlds Most Boring Sport. Another poster in that thread observed that “many fans have a sort of stubborn traditionalism over the matter”, and that "the attitude among many soccer fans is a Bruce Hornsby-ish ‘that’s just the way it is’ ". Gee, that sounds familiar… Something else interesting I learned is that in the mid-twentieth century, [World Cup scores were a lot higher.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_FIFA_World_Cup) Sure, that was cherry-picked as a high water mark; but if you go look at the other World Cups from the 1950s, there just weren’t nearly as many 0-0 and 1-0 scores as there were this year. I wonder if someone transported from that era would be so sanguine about the low scoring. It looks to me like the evolutionary struggle between offense and defense has slowly ratcheted in the defense’s direction, slowly enough that you are standing on tradition for a situation that ironically was not traditionally the way the sport was intended! Looking at just the scores of World Cup Finals (the games casual fans, with the potential to become more ardent fans if they like what they see, would be most likely to watch), the trend is put in even more stark relief. \*\*Six out of the last seven World Cup Finals (starting with 1990) have seen two or fewer goals scored (the exception being a 3-0 barnburner in 1998). Before 1990, there had never, _ever been a Final in which that was true. Three of the six were scoreless at the end of regular time, including the most recent two; and a fourth featured no regular goals scored but was won 1-0 due to a penalty kick._ You going to tell me this is a coincidence? Or that it is a healthy direction of evolution in the game? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/199 "2014-07-16T10:26:47Z")
Oh wow, it turns out MLS actually \*tried \*to enlarge the goal in the 1990s but got [totally shut down](http://articles.latimes.com/1996-03-10/sports/sp-45390_1_goal-size) by FIFA. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/200 "2014-07-16T10:29:34Z")
I think the bigger goals option was mooted at one point. Personally, I wouldn’t be automatically against marginally larger goals, and I do mean marginally. However, if you did make the goals bigger im sure you would see fewer upsets in the game. Fewer underdogs would win. Underdogs are invariably more defensive minded. They ought to keep their chance of a shutout or a late goal victory. Can you imagine Barcelonas forward line of Messi, Neymar and Suarez with bigger goals to aim at? The game has worked by and large for the past 150 years. Its the number one sport in many countries, and one of the top sports in many others. I’d be wary of changing too much. FIFA and UEFA have done their best to ruin the game in the past two decades with different rules and refereeing regulations. I think penalty shootout controversy is exaggerated. Despite what you see in the WC they are rarely needed. Most football is played on a League basis. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742.md?page=11)