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.
“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.
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”?
Love me some Frank Deford:
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.
Double Post!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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?
Anything can be measured by stats. But not every stat is meaningful.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Yeah, I’m still not following you.
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.
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”.
“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.
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.
A clean sheet is when you stop the other time scoring for the entire game.
There have actually been changes over the years. Some in my lifetime (I am 40) that I can remember include:
The 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.
And as shown, football fans are not against change.
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.
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
…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” is when a team does not concede a goal.
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.
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.
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.
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.
: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.
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.
They go away knowing that they enjoyed the game. I’m British, we’d just go down the pub anyway.
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.
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.
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).
Pretty sure my boss would have rather I’d been doing some work too
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 I am being ridiculed for:
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. 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?
Oh wow, it turns out MLS actually *tried *to enlarge the goal in the 1990s but got totally shut down by FIFA.
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.