This was actually done for a while in the 30’s, IIRC. Games ending in a draw were re-played next day. I think at least once a re-match also ended in a draw, so there was a re-re-match.
This rule already exists:
That’s way different than NHL offsides. Do you watch the NHL? The NHL does not call offsides 1 foot in front of the goal.
Using the midfield line for offsides is pretty useless. It does not impact the game much at all.
It’s a completely different rule in the NHL. Once the puck legally crosses the blue (offside) line, offside no longer is in play. You can have three attackers behind the last defender and the shooter 40 feet away, and it is legal until the puck is played back across the blue line.
I agree with a previous poster that corner kicks would not work. The last World Cup was so full of clutching and grabbing without anything being called that corners looked like scrums. It’d only get worse if the game was on the line.
I disagree with this. First, more scoring - and in many cases more games - doesn’t necessarily improve the odds of the “better” team winning. There are plenty of upsets in football, basketball and baseball; heck, if a runner gets thrown out on a single play in 2004, the Yankees likely win the world series that year. Second, generally speaking we see the same teams surviving to the ends of/winning most seasons or cups, so quality does prevail.
I actually like the-scoring nature of soccer. Not only does the tension make the game highly interesting, but it makes a finish like QPR-Man City even more exciting.
hockey has low scoring but it has a lot more action. Number one there is hitting and there are also way more shots on goal - about 60 per game. The hockey offside rule works to prevent goal hanging but it does not stifle offense.
Also because they play all 20 players except the backup goalie (in most games) the players are fresh and can still play hard even in OT periods. They are not totally gassed because they spend 1/3 of the game on the bench resting.
Bolding mine. You aren’t comparing apples with apples. Each bit of “action” matters less in the context of the complete match. You may prefer lots of less exciting moments. The billions who love football prefer them less frequent but more exciting.
There is no objectively “better” measure.
It is a different game. more akin to indoor 5-a-side than the 11-a-side game. I’m willing to bet that field hockey has a shots/goal ratio closer to football than ice hockey due to the size of the game area, goals and players.
The physical exertion of the game is an intrinsic part of it. It is a stamina sport and in itself contributes to goals being scored. If you allowed unlimited subs then not only do you keep the offence fresh, the same is true of the defence and if fresh players at the beginning of the game don’t up the scoring rate then why would it do so at the end?
The game is what it is. The billions around the world love it for what it is, (perceived) low scoring and all. How many single baskets in the NBA compare to the significance of Maradona, Van Basten, Gascoine, Carlos Alberto et al. Note, I don’t even have to give time and dates because pretty much everyone knows “those” goals.
Incremental changes are fine. A wholesale revamping to up the scoring rate to appeal to an audience that isn’t needed is a non-starter.
I completely disagree with this. You’re used to a low-scoring game, but there’s nothing necessary about it: after all, hockey and lacrosse are the same kind of game as football, but they’re not as low-scoring as the current version of football is. Or, look at high-school football: that’s not generally as low scoring as Champions League.
There’s nothing ‘inherent’ about a goal that’s 7.32 meters by 2.44 meters; that’s a historical choice. Nor is there anything ‘inherent’ about the current offsides rule, which was modified very recently in the history of the game.
Unless you think that any rule change at all would make the game something completely different. In which case, Pele didn’t play football, he played something completely different, as the offsides rule was different back then.
Well, that’s a matter of personal taste, isn’t it? And I’m saying my taste is for more scoring. I’m not disputing that you like them, but don’t say that it’s a fact that all football fans universally like low scoring.
And then, finally, you admit that low scoring isn’t necessary for a sport to be popular:
So, clearly, football could still be popular even if it had higher scoring.
Now, I’m not saying there’s an easy solution. Especially if we want to keep exactly the same rules for top-professional matches and primary school matches. But I, for one, would welcome some change to open up the top-level game some more.
I didn’t say it was necessary I said it was inherent. Which it is. A big field, a lot of players, a difficult achievement required (scoring a goal) means you aren’t going to get a lot of goals. You can tweak it if you like but how many more goals are enough? Would doubling the amount of goals per game suffice? And what wholesale changes would be needed for that? and what unintended consequences would result? and would it result in a net attraction of people to the sport?
Everything is a choice. Would slightly bigger goals help? well in the women’s game they use the same size goal so that is proportionally larger and yet the rate of scoring is perhaps 1 goal a game more (without allowing for other factors)
The offside rule in it’s current form is nearly 80 years old. There have been minor tweaks but no revolution so it is something of a fixture now.
I’ve already said I’m happy for minor changes. The game that Pele played is pretty much the same as today which is a good thing.
Nor do the fans clamour for the game to be changed to create more goals.
Not necessary, but scoring at the current level is not a bar to popularity either. I don’t buy that more goals would make it more popular.
A solution for what? increasing the number of goals? you’d first have to convince people that there is a problem in the first place.
Up through, IIRC, 1986 (definitely as late as 1982), if the World Cup Final was a draw after 90 minutes and after extra time (I think it was 40 minutes back then), they would replay the match two days later. Almost certainly, this would have been abolished after the first time it happened, because of the problems it would cause with the fans’ hotel, travel, and work schedules, not to mention the instant black market for ticket stubs, assuming the replay would be limited to ticket holders of the final. The other problem with this was, if this was a draw as well, they would resort to penalty kicks.
From what I heard, nothing is going to please Beckenbauer and FIFA. Beckenbauer wants no golden or silver goal (“silver goal” is when the match can end if the tie is broken after an odd number of overtime periods, the way, say, basketball works), 11-on-11, and no “set pieces” (e.g. a “corner kicking contest”).
I have a feeling the only thing he would accept that’s a change from “normal” soccer is something like 10 minutes, change sides, 10 more minutes, but each team is allowed unlimited substitution (and can bring players back who were taken out earlier in the match, except for anybody with a red card) between any 10-minute period. Unfortunately, pretty much everything besides “play the entire match again” is going to be considered a kluge.
For some reason I’ve long wanted to see a system that was a series of short OTs, like 5 minutes, and each successive OT take away a player from each team, so the first OT would be normal 11-on-11, the next OT would be 10-on-10, and so on, down to, I don’t know, 4-on-4. Teams could substitute removed players back into the game at the beginning of every OT period so they could have their best players on the field. No golden goal, play until the score is no longer tied at the end of any OT.
This! This so much!
I can’t believe any self-respecting football fan would want the game to be decided by something so unfootball-like as a PK shootout. It’s like having tied baseball games decided by a home run derby, or a tied NBA game with a slam dunk contest.
Actually, any solution where the game is resolved by playing football is waaaaaaaaaaay better than PK shootouts. Possible solutions:
- After regulation + 2 OT, subtract one player every 5 minutes from both teams.
- After regulation + 2 OT, widen the goals
- After regulation + 2 OT, enforce a rule where X players have to be beyond the halfway mark
- After regulation + 2 OT, every foul is an auto game ejection (though not necessarily a red card, since affects future games)
- After regulation + 2 OT, no rules change, just keep playing until they drop dead or score a damned goal.
Basically: let them play a full game with normal rules, and only change the rules if they still are tied. But for the love of Buddha, don’t have them decide a tie by playing a completely different and much more shallow game, which is what the PK shootout is.
I’m going to defend the status quo. Winning a penalty shoot-out requires skill and stamina (most players taking a kick in a shoot-out will have been on the pitch for 120 minutes plus injury time). It’s football boiled down to a really basic level - one attacker has one shot to beat one defender. You can practice penalty kicks. It’s not a “lottery”. Beating a top goalkeeper from 12 yards with all that pressure - not easy, hence why a significant minority are missed or saved. Also, you can directly relate it to the gameplay preceding it, in that penalty kicks are awarded during normal play for fouls by the defending team in the penalty area. No change required.
In addition, penalty shoot-outs are dramatic and instant. Oh yeah, and England generally lose…
Actually I don’t. 
Before replying I had a quick look at the offside rule in NHL and I’ve got the impression that it is similar to the one in football. My mistake.
As others said, most of the fans (there must be a couple billions of them, at least) do not see low scoring as a problem. IMO, it is perfectly possible to have an exciting game with only a couple goals scored.
As for increasing the size of the goals...those things are quite big, actually. Positioning and reaction speed are more important for a goalkeeper than physical size. Yes, being taller helps a lot, but a significant number of them are of average height. After all, a free kick from a distance of 20 meters is seen as a good opportunity to score, despite the fact that half (if not more) of the goal is blocked by 4 or 5 opponents.
What makes it difficult to score during the play is, IMO, not the size of the goal but the fact that the attacker has very little time to prepare his shot.
I didn’t see this suggested; sorry if it was.
This is what I think would be fun to see. It’s similar to what some short-sided rec leagues play:
1 - Pull the goalie or take away their right to use their hands.
2 - The penalty box becomes off limits to any offensive player. There’d be some rule about time wasting so that the defense doesn’t plant themselves in there if they’re ahead.
3 - No shot at goal directly from a kickoff, maybe something like only after three touches or an opposing player touching the ball.
4 - A kickoff could take place as soon as the kicking team sets the ball down on the center dot, no waiting for the ref’s whistle or a showboating goalscorer to get back onto their side of the field. If an opposing player tries to impede the kick, they get tossed. All the opposing players would also have to get back to their side of the field before they could touch the ball (sort of like a delayed offside in hockey).
5 - Play 15-20 minute periods until one team has more goals than the other, free substitutions at the start of each period - no subs otherwise unless for injury and the injured player wouldn’t be allowed to return.
It’d be like a pickup game with the best players in the world. There’d be lot’s of scoring, but also some excitement with near misses and not so near misses, and no one would be so obviously the goat like in a shootout where you have to live with the memory of being last and missing seemingly forever (Christmas tournament, ninth grade, 1985, upper right corner = the goal post, forever my nemesis). Also, I think it’d just be crazy fun to watch (and to play).
I do like the set piece shoot-out idea that somebody alluded to above. Say, the teams take indirect free kicks in turn from anywhere 5 yards or more from the penalty box, with a 30-second time limit. It’s not football, but it’s a lot closer to the ideal than penalties.
I don’t think it is. The only footballing option is either to play tills someone wins or to reduce both teams by a player every 10 minutes or whatever. Set pieces are set pieces, so why are corners or free kicks better than penalties? Corners would just mean Sweden get a leg up on teams like Spain.
At least a corner kick involves 22 players rather than 2.
Yeah, that’s bullcrap. At best there are 21 players envolved (goalkeeper of the attacking team) and your comment actually points to another problem. If we do corners, the whole attacking side can focus on getting a goal, without players staying back to defend a possible counter attack. So it isn’t just that it has little to do with real football, it is also changing this aspect in a way that it is a whole new exercise.
ps all this is just a media thing anyway, there are no ‘solutions’ to deciding a winner that is going to satisfy FIFA. We are talking about an organization that makes the Catholic Church like a bunch of progressive hippies.
Right on! No tampering with the sanctity of the nil-nil tie.
There’s nothing wrong with soccer/football that more stoppage time won’t fix. And since we don’t have enough bewildering interleague/meaningless tournament play during the season already, how about some hot MLS transgender action? I wanna see MagicJack play the Red Bulls with competing ads crawling across the TV screen, and later on a big parade down Pennsylvania Avenue for the winner of the Supporters’ Shield (there is no better-named title in all of sports).
The thrills are too much already; I can’t bear any more adrenaline.
Exactly. Sometimes 0-0 is a reasonable reflection of the way the game went. Of course, the soccer haters assume that 0-0 equals boring, and for them maybe it does, but that doesn’t mean that it’s boring for actual fans, or that actual fans want to get rid of the scoreless draw.
Just out of interest, what percentage of games do you think end at 0-0?
In the English Premier League, German Bundesliga, Spanish La Liga, and Italian Serie A combined, i just counted a total of 13,542 games over the past 10 years (7 years for the Bundesliga), and of those games 7.8 percent ended in a 0-0 draw.
The lowest was Germany, with 6.7%, and the highest was Italy, with 8.5%. That’s about 1 in 12. And most actual soccer fans don’t consider that a huge problem.
As i’ve said already in this thread, if there was a large and growing call from actual fans for changes in the rules, i’d be happy to consider the changes. But most people who whine about this stuff are people who wouldn’t watch soccer even if the rules were changed to suit their short attention span. When someone comes up to me and says, effectively…
…then you’ll excuse me if i don’t rush out and take their advice. I’ll let soccer struggle along with it’s mere billion or so fans.