# 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:** 9
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/161 "2014-07-15T08:36:57Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Soccer will never really compete with the big sports in the US as long as it is so low-scoring. I guess it’ll just have to get by with being overall the most popular sport in the world. It’ll survive. Regarding other discussions, I’ve always been a fan of the “reduce the number of players in extra time” idea. It’d be like watch Rugby Sevens, still recognisably the sport it is built on but with an arseload more space. And yes, they’ll be tired, but they’re pretty damn tired with 11 on 11 as well. They will be tired no matter what, at least this way we are more likely to see a conclusion based on something that happens in open play. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/162 "2014-07-15T08:40:44Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > What you don’t seem to get is that if no-hitters or not rare in baseball, they _would_ be boring. If they were common, it would kill the game. > > Soccer will never really compete with the big sports in the US as long as it is so low-scoring. And hockey will remain in a tier lower than the others as well. > > Oh well, in any case soccer can never provide the finesse and complexity that American football does. It’s a great game for little kids to play, though — or impoverished adults who have little more than a ball to work with, and not even a flat, smooth surface to dribble a basketball on…which is no doubt why it is so popular in the developing world. Now account for its popularity in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, the UK, Belgium, Holland, Germany… in most of which countries it’s big business attracting many, many millions of dollars. ---
**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 15, 2014, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/163 "2014-07-15T10:10:27Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Defense should be able to be expressed in stats, otherwise you just have subjective opinion. That’s like saying the team that’s the favorite should just be given the championship, because that’s subjective too. A good defence is expressed in terms of goals conceded. No other stat is required. Stats can work in sport certainly but not everything that matters can be measured by stats and not everything that can be measured by stats matters. You may be constrained by your culture into thinking that everything in sports must be accompanied by stats. I don’t. I love cricket and there are at least as many stats for that as any USA sport you care to mention but I also love football which doesn’t really care too much about stats beyond win, lose or draw. > [@](#): > > Defense and offense works together. indeed and the cumulative effect of that combination is most often reflected in the scoreline. > [@](#): > > A stalemate in chess is boring, even though it may be advantageous. It should end with one clear winner. But the great head-to-heads allow three outcomes, win, lose or draw. better a draw than a loss yes? and they contribute towards your final tally and deciding the ultimate winner. > [@](#): > > The ultimate point of playing the game is to win. NOT to be a good sport. NOT to do your best. NOT to even make the fans happy or create drama. Its to win. And in football sometimes you ultimately win by drawing a game because you deny the extra points to your opponent or you get a point where others in your group do not etc. etc. > [@](#): > > And if a game is set up so that defense is so overwhelmingly outmatching the offense in a way where sheer luck determines the winner, then it must be changed Absolutely, fortunately sheer luck is rarely enough to produce the winner of a knock-out tournament and never enough to produce a league winner. So I’m not sure what your point is here. > [@](#): > > Having more scoring would make the game fairer by reducing the luck of penalty kicks deciding the game. It would reward players for being better, because just because you have a lot of energy and can run around for 90 mins should not make you a good soccer player, you should be equally proficient in scoring. More scoring would reward better coaching, who would then have to practice both sides of the field rather than spending most of the time on defense and hope that a chance to score opens up. And it would get more people interested in it, guaranteed, because the soccer lovers now are not going to desert the game and anything that gets the US and its massive amount of dollars into it would improve the game Wow, if only those backward football coaches cared about scoring and tried a little harder. I often wondered why explosive, creative, goal machines like Ronaldo, Messi and Suarez are so neglected and undervalued…oh, hang on a sec. Your reading of tactics above is naive and simplistic. Football is fluid. It is a careful balance between attack and defence. Scoring a goal is very difficult, keeping a clean sheet is very difficult. There are myriad ways in which a coach may set up his team accomplish both these outcomes and myriad ways in which the opposing coach seeks to stop you doing precisely that. To borrow a boxing quote, “styles make fights” and there are certainly some occasions where a boring game comes from a clash of styles, and of course the opposite is also true. The best coaches seek to develop either a prefered style that is indefensible and can be imposed on their opponents, or perhaps a more fluid and changeable approach that can be adapted according to what your opponents try to do. To extend the boxing metaphor, sometimes you dominate and knock them out, sometimes you dominate and get hit with a sucker punch, sometimes there is a brutal, brilliant war with no clear winner and you have to go to an arbitrary method to designate a winner. And, just occasionally, you have a two boring lard-arses clinching and pushing their way through 12 rounds until you just wish they can both be picked off by a sniper. > [@](#): > > A 0-0 is basically wasted effort: nothing was accomplished and nobody had any point in playing the game. apart from the point each team gained > [@](#): > > You could have dropped that game from existence and it wouldn’t have mattered. apart from the point that each team gained > [@](#): > > Soccer tries to make it matter by institution a system of points and weird rankings like group play What is weird about that? Group play is the standard for football the world over. The vast majority of the sport is organised into season-long leagues where every point is important and every goal scored/conceded counts towards your end position. Knock-out football is not the way you find the best team. That is what a league is for. It is the least-worst way of getting a group of teams together and finding a winner amongst them. It just so happens that the winner is likely to also be one of the best teams. But not guaranteed. Therein lies the excitement. If Portugal played the USA 38 times and allocate 0/1/3 points for L/D/W you can pretty much guarantee who will come out on top. For single game? Not so certain. If you can’t grasp the difference between those two scenarios and why it makes knockout football rather special then I’d say for sure you don’t understand the game at all. > [@](#): > > but it would be more definitive if we actually got an answer as to who’s better you are assuming that for a given game there _is_ a better team. > [@](#): > > At this point, I see soccer fans as holding on to their issues that they refuse to resolve vs. possibly creating others, but it doesn’t make soccer any more untouchable like some people seem to want to think it is. If scoring goes up to 5 or 10 on average, so what? So each goal will mean less, that just means you guys can get excited over actual shut-outs, which would be much more difficult to do now I can’t follow your points there. Are you saying we should aim more towards a game where we prize clean-sheets over goals? ---
**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 15, 2014, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/164 "2014-07-15T10:19:14Z")
Do people in countries that like soccer not have the idiom about kissing your sister? ---
**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 15, 2014, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/165 "2014-07-15T11:36:10Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Do people in countries that like soccer not have the idiom about kissing your sister? It isn’t a UK idiom particularly, what is the relevance to this discussion. ---
**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 15, 2014, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/166 "2014-07-15T11:44:04Z")
I guess it’s an American thing. [Wiki sez:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tie_(draw)) > [@](#): > > The unpopularity of ties in American sports is reflected in the saying, “A tie is like kissing your sister.” The earliest known use of the phrase was by Navy football coach Eddie Erdelatz after a scoreless tie against Duke in 1953. So again: you furriners have made it abundantly clear that you like soccer (“football”) the way it is. The point of this thread, I thought, was to talk about how \*American \*soccer could be changed to make it more popular _here_. (After all, Canada and Australia have different versions of football, and international basketball has different rules, as does hockey; so why not do the same with soccer?) And we Americans indeed do not like ties in sport. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/167 "2014-07-15T13:26:23Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I guess it’s an American thing. [Wiki sez:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tie_(draw)) > > So again: you furriners have made it abundantly clear that you like soccer (“football”) the way it is. The point of this thread, I thought, was to talk about how \*American \*soccer could be changed to make it more popular _here_. (After all, Canada and Australia have different versions of football, and international basketball has different rules, as does hockey; so why not do the same with soccer?) And we Americans indeed do not like ties in sport. And we are giving our informed(_) opinion as to why some of the ideas just won’t work. (_) And yes, I may look like a dick for saying that, but by your own [admission](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17546917&postcount=148) you hardly see any football beyond watching your son play. ETA: I say “won’t work” as if you fundamentally change the game, which is what a lot of the “improvements” given will do, you run the risk of alienating those that have had it as their major sport since the nineteenth century. Which would probably just see them going off and doing their own thing, leaving the US with Soccer++ but no one else to play with. ---
**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/168 "2014-07-15T13:29:59Z")
Sometimes a tie is the most appropriate score. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/169 "2014-07-15T13:41:54Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I guess it’s an American thing. [Wiki sez:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tie_(draw)) > > So again: you furriners have made it abundantly clear that you like soccer (“football”) the way it is. The point of this thread, I thought, was to talk about how \*American \*soccer could be changed to make it more popular _here_. (After all, Canada and Australia have different versions of football, and international basketball has different rules, as does hockey; so why not do the same with soccer?) And we Americans indeed do not like ties in sport. Here’s the problem with that; the MLS TRIED to Americanize the sport when it started. It resulted in lower attendance and, eventually, to two of the original teams folding (Miami and Tampa). People just weren’t fans of the tinkering (yes, one could say that the first fans were used to European soccer so nothing else would do, but those dedicated to global soccer rules probably make up the majority of MLS fanbase). MLS went back to global soccer rules and has been growing pretty nicely. Those fans are perfectly fine with ties and have been. In addition, hockey has ties. American football even has ties, though those only happen once every five years, but they still exist. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/170 "2014-07-15T13:57:03Z")
Speaking as an American, I think the suggestions of most of the Americans are crap, and should be ignored. The game is making tremendous progress here as it is, and I don’t want to see the national team damaged because we’re teaching some kind of freaky bastardized game that is different than everyone else. I wouldn’t mind seeing a few tweaks - the 4th substitution in extra time is a good idea, and I read somewhere FIFA is considering it. I’d like golden goal kept in place for tournaments that require advancement. The rampant flopping has to be dealt with, as well as the massive shithole of corruption and evil that is FIFA, but I think most people internationally agree on those. And, honestly, getting scoring up a tick, to something like 4 goals a game, would be fine by me. But getting rid of draws? Ugh, no. It was a mistake when American football did it, and the way American college football ends its ties is worse than PKs. 10-9 soccer games? Double Ugh. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/171 "2014-07-15T14:57:26Z")
Casual World Cup fan here. I only have a couple of tweaks and neither is really about the game itself: 1. Control flopping. Post-game suspensions/fines/what-have-you. Get it down to controllable levels. 2. Increase the count of officials to 7 as follows: 4 linesmen (2 on each half of the field), 2 assistant refs (again one for each half) - their job is to keep an eye on things away from the play and provide a different angle for tough calls, 1 head referee (substantially same duties as now). This would only increase the number of non-players on each half of the pitch by 1 so as not to provide additional obstacles to play. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/172 "2014-07-15T15:42:08Z")
> [@Zakalwe](#): > > Casual World Cup fan here. I only have a couple of tweaks and neither is really about the game itself: > > 1. Control flopping. Post-game suspensions/fines/what-have-you. Get it down to controllable levels. > 2. Increase the count of officials to 7 as follows: 4 linesmen (2 on each half of the field), 2 assistant refs (again one for each half) - their job is to keep an eye on things away from the play and provide a different angle for tough calls, 1 head referee (substantially same duties as now). This would only increase the number of non-players on each half of the pitch by 1 so as not to provide additional obstacles to play. Both are fantastic ideas, IMO! Even increasing the number of officials to 5 would be a good step - 3 is just too few (though of course there’d have to be an easy way of deciding offsides or not offsides if the officials disagree)! ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/173 "2014-07-15T18:33:54Z")
> [@OldGuy](#): > > Back in the 60s at my highschool soccer games, I occasionally ran the clock. When the referee blew his whistle I stopped the scoreboard clock. Certainly a technology like that could be used at all levels that had a scoreboard with a clock. I believe they essedntially do the same thing in the NFL, NBA, and the sports in colleges and high schools to this day. The NCAA (and I think high school as well) rules say that if there is a scoreboard clock available, it is the “official” time; the referee signals to start/stop the clock like the referee in football does (and, in fact, the announcer has to count down the last ten seconds of each half). When this happens, you get the situation where the ball is just about all of the way across the goal line when the time expires, and the referee has to decide if it was all the way across before time ran out or not. (I have a feeling this is one of the reasons they don’t use visible “official time remaining” clocks in soccer. Then again, they could do what they do in American football (and I think in Australian Rugby Union as well); if the ball is in play when time expires, play continues until it is no longer in play, although play would continue if stopped by a foul on the defense). Actually, when MLS started, they used a “countdown” clock, although I don’t know if the referee could add time or not. The version I heard was, they got rid of it because they felt that most of the fan base was used to Mexican soccer, where they use the “traditional” method. > [@K364](#): > > Deciding 4 years of football on penalty kicks is obscene. > > I’m not sure if this has been suggested yet, but handle the extra time similar to the way that the NHL handles it’s overtime: > > - make the extra time sudden death. > - in the first extra time period reduce the number of players for each team to 8 > - in the second extra time period reduce the number of players for each team to 6 > > optionally eliminate the offside rule in the extra time. My idea: every 10 minutes, both sides remove a player, until the game ends or it is 7-on-7. The problem is, there’s only one thing you can do to break a tie that doesn’t smack of “that’s not soccer”; wait 1-2 days, then start over. (In fact, had any World Cup final prior to 1990 finished tied after extra time, I’m pretty sure the entire match would have been replayed 2 days later. I have a feeling that the first time it would have happened, the uproar from the fans whose hotel and flight plans suddenly changed would have ended it then and there.) Even extra time until somebody scores reaches the point where it’s no longer so much a soccer match as it is a marathon race. > [@Sterling\_Archer](#): > > I just wish they’d move the PK’s back about 10 feet. It’s ridiculous that the goalie has to jump before the ball is even kicked to make a save. They should move it back until the conversion rate is about 50% instead of 80%. This isn’t really a problem - in men’s soccer. I am under the impression that it is almost impossible to stop a penalty kick in women’s soccer taken by somebody who is trained in this sort of thing; moving it out to “the D” might be better. As for “ideas to increase scoring,” if you really need one, here’s mine: no offensive player is allowed to cross the line parallel to the goal line that contains the edge of the penalty area until after the ball crosses the line; once the ball crosses the line, the restriction is lifted until the ball crosses the center line again (so a ball that is kicked just outside of the area doesn’t result in a mad scramble for all of the offensive players to leave). ---
**Author:** ![TheBoltEater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@TheBoltEater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBoltEater)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/174 "2014-07-15T21:09:08Z")
Let me add in something on a bit of a tangent that I don’t think people talk enough about. As a former soccer referee,I _hate_ seeing a ref get confronted by a mob of players on both sides screaming in his face from inches away after a controversial call. Arguing a call is one thing, attempting to intimidate the ref is quite another. I’d love to see soccer introduce some form of the 2 ice hockey rules that apply to this - 1. Only the captain (or an alternate if the captain’s not on the ice) can argue with the ref about a rule interpretation. Anyone else gets in his face, misconduct penalty. 2. There is a semi-circle right by the bench where the ref goes to speak with the off-ice official. No one on either team is permitted in that circle unless the ref invites them in, and then it would only be the captains or alternates. So 1, only the team captain or an alternate can argue with the ref (decide how to name an alternate however you want) and 2, the center circle and both semi-circles at the top of the penalty areas are ref safe-havens. If the ref needs some space to talk to the captains or to his linesmen he can walk over to one of the circles and anyone who follows him gets an automatic yellow card (at the ref’s discretion, of course. Warnings first, cards later). ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/175 "2014-07-15T21:10:28Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > A good defence is expressed in terms of goals conceded. No other stat is required. Stats can work in sport certainly but not everything that matters can be measured by stats and not everything that can be measured by stats matters. Disagree. Most things in sports can and should be measured by stats. Otherwise its a toss-up between luck and skill. 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 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 > [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > But the great head-to-heads allow three outcomes, win, lose or draw. better a draw than a loss yes? and they contribute towards your final tally and deciding the ultimate winner. > > And in football sometimes you ultimately win by drawing a game because you deny the extra points to your opponent or you get a point where others in your group do not etc. etc. 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 > [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > Absolutely, fortunately sheer luck is rarely enough to produce the winner of a knock-out tournament and never enough to produce a league winner. So I’m not sure what your point is here. 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 > [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > Wow, if only those backward football coaches cared about scoring and tried a little harder. I often wondered why explosive, creative, goal machines like Ronaldo, Messi and Suarez are so neglected and undervalued…oh, hang on a sec. 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 > [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > Your reading of tactics above is naive and simplistic. 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 > [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > apart from the point each team gained > apart from the point that each team gained So if the teams didn’t gain points, you would agree that those games are pointless? > [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > What is weird about that? Group play is the standard for football the world over. The vast majority of the sport is organised into season-long leagues where every point is important and every goal scored/conceded counts towards your end position. 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 > [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > you are assuming that for a given game there _is_ a better team. 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 > [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > I can’t follow your points there. Are you saying we should aim more towards a game where we prize clean-sheets over goals? A clean-sheet what? So, a couple of questions for you then: 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? 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? 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? ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/176 "2014-07-15T22:16:55Z")
> [@That\_Don\_Guy](#): > > The NCAA (and I think high school as well) rules say that if there is a scoreboard clock available, it is the “official” time; the referee signals to start/stop the clock like the referee in football does (and, in fact, the announcer has to count down the last ten seconds of each half). When this happens, you get the situation where the ball is just about all of the way across the goal line when the time expires, and the referee has to decide if it was all the way across before time ran out or not. I think that a complete reformation of how the clock works is a good idea, but one that might never be able to overcome stubornness. Here’s how it SHOULD work, imho, to maintain as much of the flavor as current soccer as possible. -there’s a big visible scoreboard with a clock on it, which starts at 0:00 (might as well count upwards to maintain tradition) -there’s a guy in the booth whose job it is to hit a start and stop button. As long as the ball is in play, time is counting. As long as the ball is not in play, time is not counting. The ref on field has the ability to override and correct if it’s not clear what’s going on. -when time reaches 45:00, then the ref is informed that the half should end as soon as possible, and it is in his discretion to blow the whistle any time either play has stopped, or the ball has been cleared out and there is no current attack going on… pretty much the way it’s always worked at the end of stoppage time. I suspect this would actually make games somewhat longer, because I’ll bet that the total amount of time when the ball is not in play is usually longer than the amount of stoppage time added. Any drawbacks to this system? ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/177 "2014-07-15T22:59:36Z")
I was thinking about this thread in general (and this isn’t the only place Americans have tried to suggest changes to the game on the interwebs), and it definitely ends up as two sides talking past each other a lot. One of the reasons is that on the, I’ll say, traditionalist side, it seems like a group of folks who just got interested in the game want to change the sport so it matches their experiences of their own home country sports. Soccer is, after all, over 100 years old and rules have been tinkered with all that time in order to achieve the right balance (what effect a goal has in extra time for instance - from play it through to golden goal to silver goal back to play it through [or something like that]). It isn’t as if the game hasn’t changed since the early 1900s. Basically, people enjoy the fact that the game IS fairly low scoring (though, yes there are some limits to how low scoring, of course) for the most part and ties are a valid way to end a game. In essence it would be like a Brit watching the NFL playoffs, thinking it was fun and interesting, but suggesting that the flow was horrible and therefore he had a few ideas. The Brit thinks that constant substitutions interrupt the game too much and would prohibit all substitutions, offense or defense during a ‘drive’, with the exception for a punt or FG. And the time between plays should be 20 seconds. To most American football fans, this Brit, while perhaps meaning well, just doesn’t comprehend that American football fans like the strategy in all the substitutions and the extended play clock that results from it. In that way, I think the aims of both sides are just that different. So what seems sensical to American changers, elicits a reply of “ARE YOU MAD?!” from the soccer fans. I literally recoiled when the suggestion that 7-6 games wouldn’t be that bad - it would change the complete character of the matches and reduce the tension. (FWIW, I considered the 7-1 game a bad game and a boring one. I stopped watching - it was on in the background at the pub. However, in most sports, a blowout is considered quite dull.) ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/178 "2014-07-15T23:02:19Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Any drawbacks to this system? Only one. Timekeeper could decide to run the clock really fast (ie, no stops) when home team had the lead so that the crowd would be great pressure on the ref. “You said 2 extra minutes, ref! It’s been at least 5!” I think perhaps the best thing would be if the ref could control a stadium clock himself and with technology improving as it is, I don’t see why that couldn’t happen at some point (with the understanding of a slightly fluid 30 seconds when the clock hits 45 or 90 - if in the middle of a play). ---
**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 15, 2014, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/179 "2014-07-15T23:08:05Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > I say “won’t work” as if you fundamentally change the game, which is what a lot of the “improvements” given will do, you run the risk of alienating those that have had it as their major sport since the nineteenth century. Which would probably just see them going off and doing their own thing, leaving the US with Soccer++ but no one else to play with. This has not been a problem for fans of Canadian or Aussie football, despite much smaller populations. > [@ISiddiqui](#): > > In addition, hockey has ties. American football even has ties, though those only happen once every five years, but they still exist. Hockey ties have become much rarer with new rules, as have football ties since the NCAA added a form of overtime. Something that happens in a blue moon (like a no-hitter in baseball) is, again, a whole different animal than a routine event. Do diehard fans leaving a tied game go celebrate, drink away their sorrows, or what? So weird to me. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742/180 "2014-07-15T23:29:48Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > I was thinking about this thread in general (and this isn’t the only place Americans have tried to suggest changes to the game on the interwebs), and it definitely ends up as two sides talking past each other a lot. Some of it is, some of it isn’t. When people suggest that the score should be 7-6, then people who really love soccer are rightfully aghast. But much of this thread is about ways to reduce diving or get rid of PKs, and as far as I can tell from many such discussions, no true soccer fan actually LIKES PKs or diving, so responses to the suggestion range from “that’s a good idea” to “that’s a good idea but it has these drawbacks…” to “I fear change!” to “how dare you upstart yanks make suggestions about a game that’s over 100 years old, (but yeah that’s a fine idea)”. > [@](#): > > Only one. Timekeeper could decide to run the clock really fast (ie, no stops) when home team had the lead so that the crowd would be great pressure on the ref. “You said 2 extra minutes, ref! It’s been at least 5!” Right, the guy running the clock should NOT be an employee of the venue, he should be one of the match officials, part of the officiating team, so presumably just as neutral as the linesmen, etc. And of course with this new proposal everything he does would be completely transparent, because if he lets time keep ticking while setting up for a corner (or whatever) everyone in the world can see it happen on TV, whereas in the current system if a Ref is partial and decides to give the home team a few extra minutes of stoppage time to tie it up, there’s no way to ever know. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-once-again-for-americans-to-tell-the-world-how-to-fix-soccer/690742.md?page=10)