Actually I was inspired by a tongue in cheek article in the Atlantic magazine this month, which I can’t locate on line. It was written by a sports widow who proposed rules changes for baseball, soccer, football and basketball. I presented her soccer proposal. To emphasize: she really has no interest in spectator sports.
I believe strongly that this is an issue for fans, not outsiders like myself. But there were some great World Cup discussions here 4 years ago, and I wanted to read what soccer fans thought about this naive proposal.
Cool.
Heck I’ll thank you now!
I perceived Brazil as dominating the field, but that may have been an illusion. In fact it probably was: I’ve seen precious few games. Still: won on penalty kicks!?!?!!? New (jackassed) proposal: in the event of a tie, a futsal contest will be held the next day. Or maybe badminton. Same players (with a few removed, naturally). Mix things up a little.
More seriously, think of a game being a test regarding which is the better team. With a very low sample of goals, I think there are some legitimate concerns about whether the best team truly won: is the 1-0 score “real” or the result of a fluke? That said, I actually put a somewhat heavier weight on fan perceptions, though I think the paper I linked to upthread was worth writing.
but football is perfect I wouldn’t want to change it at all. QUOTE]
Nothing is perfect and soccer certainly isn’t. If I found a magic lamp and could change one thing about soccer, I’d erase that semi-circle from the top of the penalty area. Does it serve a purpose or is it just a traditional vestige from years gone by? Soccer is a great sport but it’s not perfect. If it were, there wouldn’t be even the very few, minor changes over the years that have been added to the game (the added time minutes revealed at the end of each half, more substitutions allowed now than in previous years, the back pass rule, goal-line technology finally accepted, etc.)
The only problem that I have with low-scoring games is (as others have mentioned here) the prevalence of too many elimination games being decided by penalty kick contests. Finals should certainly never be determined this way. At the least, replay the championship game if none of the other knock-out games.
0-0 games can be very exciting, particularly since one goal will be the difference between a win, draw, or a loss. One of the most exciting games I’ve had the privilege to watch was the United States victory over Algeria in the 2010 World Cup. The buildup to the injury time goal was intense. A 10-9 victory would have gotten the same result and joy at the end but somehow I don’t think that release of tension would have been quite as epic in the end. [“Go, go USA. You couldn’t write a script like this.”]
I’ve just looked up the purpose of the semicircle and see that it does serve a purpose indeed (to prohibit players from standing too close to a player taking a penalty kick). But still, it seems too much a waste of paint, especially in a sport where the ten meter rule (or whatever the limit is) on free kicks is enforced by sight and basic estimation, rather than the more accurate measurement system done, say, in the NFL. I’m only mentioning this to defend my earlier point that soccer is far from being perfect.
The point of the semi-circle is to keep the other players back at the same distance. Without it there would be too much pushing and shoving at the closest point on the edge of the box.
I’m in favour (note the spelling) of widening the goal, if only for a trial. See what happens. I’ve seen plenty of seven goal thrillers in my life, but I’ve never seen a nil-nil thriller.
I’d eliminate ties (draws) in soccer in favor of shooutouts (it’s improved hockey, except maybe for the “true fans”). And the loser would get no points.
Also I’d throw out “stoppage time”. And I’d fix the inane “offsides” regulations.
?..seriously? you can’t have watched too many games then. The beauty of football is that a goal is so important that each one has massive significance and each near miss is a heart-in-mouth moment.
I’ve seen countless exciting games that ended 0-0, played in a few too. Getting the ball in the net is not the only exciting element of a football match, that is way you get a result but not the way you evaluate it as a spectacle.
On the subject of the World cup, Measure for Measure said
The World Cup only identifies the team best able to play knock-out football, not necessarily the same thing as the “best team in the world”. For the latter you’d have to arrange a large, multi-national league and get everyone to play home and away against everyone else. That tells you who the best team is. Knockout football is interesting precisely because is provides frustrating games against “inferior” opponents and the chance of an upset. Such upsets in a league format don’t effect the table too much at the end of the season but they are the raison d’etre of the lowly teams, hoping for a one-off sniff of glory against the giants of the game.
Frustration and upset aren’t a defect in the game, they are a bonus feature.
And the lower the typical score in such games, the more likely they are to end in a tie. (I can explain the math if it isn’t obvious.) If I were a soccer fan, I’d have a hard time with the idea of lots of important games coming down to penalty kick contests. But if soccer fans are OK with it, then what the hell, it’s their game.
Replaying games is obviously a logistical challenge; it’s hard to see this being adopted as a solution.
I love it when someone decides that the sport the rest of the world is, on balance, quite happy with, needs to implement changes for *them. *I suppose you think they should widen the goals in hockey too? Widen the NFL playing field so there’s more offense? Have the pitcher stand farther back in baseball and only have 7 defenders instead of 9?
The only games that can potentially come down to “penalty kick contests” are games in the knock-out stages of tournaments. The vast majority of matches are not knock-out round matches, and even the ones that are knock-outs are unlikely to come down to penalties.
Still, I’d agree… penalty kicks are an unfortunate way to end a soccer game. But it’s like what is said about Democracy:
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“Penalty kicks are the worst way to decide a level soccer match… except for all the other ways that have been tried.**”
The point of football isn’t just to score, it’s to score more than the other team. Defending is a perfectly valid way of doing that, then hoping to score on the break or to succeed in the shoot-out. And nothing has ever been found which is better than a penatly shoot-out. Not only is it the ultimate form of drama, but it’s fair, being based on who has the nerve and technical ability to score. Unlike other things that have been tried, like tossing a coin, or impractical things like endless replays.
Similarly, those “fittest teams” might do better if they spent some of the time they use training for fitness on working on their technique instead.
In any case the average game has three or four goals in it, in the Premiership at least. So a 2-1 result is not in the least bit unusual, and 4-3 is hardly unheard-of.
The fact is that, by definition, the team that scores the most goals is the better team. Earlier this season Borussia Dortmund played at Arsenal and, even though Arsenal dominated the game Dortmund won 2-1, and it was rightly called a tactical masterclass. Then in the return game Arsenal did much the same thing, coming away from being outplayed with a 1-0 win, commonly termed “a mugging”. That’s how it works.
The only games that can potentially come down to “penalty kick contests” are games in the knock-out stages of tournaments.
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Like I said, important games.
Any stats on this? If ‘unlikely’ means only 5%, you don’t have much of a problem. But if it’s 25%, you really do.
No, the other way that has traditionally been tried is for one team to outscore the other in regulation. And I think pretty much everyone would agree that it would be better for a game to be decided by one team scoring more goals than the other in regulation, than for it to come down to a penalty kick contest. This is especially true when, as you point out, the games we’re talking about are in the elimination stages of tournaments. And more goals per game decreases the likelihood of a tie game.
I wish I did have stats on this. Couldn’t find any after a quick look.
No, the other way that has traditionally been tried is for one team to outscore the other in regulation. And I think pretty much everyone would agree that it would be better for a game to be decided by one team scoring more goals than the other in regulation, than for it to come down to a penalty kick contest.
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Yup. Better for the game to have a winner after regulation, but you see, sometimes that doesn’t happen, so there’s that.
I wrote “level matches” and I thought it was clear I was talking about ways to settle games that are level at the end of regulation and extra-time—not about ways to settle soccer games that are level during regulation, which seems to be what you are talking about, but that doesn’t even make sense to me.
If you know of some way of ensuring that one team will always outscore the other in regulation I think a lot of folks would be interested in hearing it. Failing that, during knock-out rounds there needs to be a way to ensure that a team advances when a match ends level after 120 minutes. Currently we go to penalties.
I’ll reiterate my opinion on that: It’s not a great solution, but I don’t know of any better one.
I’m not talking about what to do when you have a tie at the end of regulation. In that situation in an elimination game, I agree that a penalty kick shootout is the best choice - but it would seem preferable that it not come to that pass in the first place. So I’m talking about reducing the likelihood of a tie game at the end of regulation. Not ensuring that it will never happen, but reducing the likelihood.
If soccer fans feel they have too many games leading to the championship being decided by penalty kicks, then the way to deal with that is to find ways to reduce the likelihood of a tie game.
The way you do that is to find a way to increase the number of goals in a game.
Which is what this thread is about, because widening the goal is one pretty obvious way to do that. There may be others as well. But widening the goal would surely do the trick.
I’d like to see the breakdown by what stage of the tournament these games went to penalty kicks. Surely, the round of 16 games go less often to PK’s (when there is a wider gulf of talent between the competitors) than do semifinal and final games. In 1990 (if I remember correctly), both semis were decided by PK’s and the final was one penalty kick itself away from seeing the same fate.
This has been discussed worldwide for decades. (I think this is the second-most discussed “problem” with soccer, after, “The offside rule needs to be changed.”) I for one would prefer something like sudden death with each team having to take a player off every 10 minutes (i.e. 10 minutes of 11-on-11, 10 of 10-on-10, 10 of 9-on-9, and so on); however, this has been dismissed by people who think, “Anything short of 11-on-11 is no more ‘soccer’ than a penalty kick shootout.”
It’s better than what they used to do (or at least have planned - it never got this far) for the World Cup Final - if the final was tied after extra time, everybody comes back two days later and they play another full match. (If that match was tied after extra time - for that matter, if either semi-final was tied after extra time - then they would have a penalty kick shootout.) It’s also better (IMO) than alternatives such as fewest fouls in the match, coin toss, or, if it’s the final, declaring co-champions.
The main problem with “keep playing 11-on-11 until somebody scores” is, if the first 120 minutes were 0-0, what makes you think somebody is going to score any time soon - and you have to get the match finished before darkness, or you run into the problems of having to delay some of the remaining matches in the tournament and wrecking the travel plans of everybody who came to see the final. (Then again, that’s what would happen anyway if the final was rained out…)
As for the OP idea of making the goal bigger, you run the risk of making it so big that any team with a reasonably accurate kicker is pretty much assured of making a penalty kick; in fact, this is considered to be a problem with women’s soccer (reportedly, if you can aim the ball for either side of the net, it is out of reach of most female goalies). Then again, you can solve this problem as well; move the penalty kick spot back.
Add my voice to the “ain’t broke, don’t fix” crowd.
I’m not convinced that actually widening the goal by a foot will actually help, anyway. The games that typically come down to penalties (World Cup knockout games, late stages of league cups of various types) tend to be between equals, so on an equal playing field, I can’t see that it’s going to make so much difference that it’s worth everyone in the world buying new goalposts.
