The complaint is that the primary component of the established skill is apparently being good at guessing. You might as well have the two captains go best 5 out of 9 rock/paper/scissors.
How do you define casual viewer? It’s not like I’m some soccer and sports superfan. I grew up watching zero sports, and I still I generally don’t watch any sports or sports news regularly, but I’ll catch a few soccer matches every couple of years as my family has a small competition for predicting the UEFA cup and FIFA word cup results.
Why should the sport cater to viewers more casual than that? I’ve tried watching American football and baseball, and found it completely boring, but I’m not asking for rule changes to cater to my needs as a casual watcher.
OP reminds me about Neymar’s reaction when Layun stepped on his ankle.
It’s an Internet slang word, a verb that refers to the use of Internet slang. 
Except the guessing is only required because of the skill of the players in setting the ball right at the edge of the goal. If it’s given a little lift it’s pretty much unreachable even if the goalie guesses right.
And the guessing also works in reverse in forcing players to aim for those more difficult “edge of goal shots”. A stressed player missing the goal is not uncommon, and in the Spain-Russia shoot out the decisive save came on an attempt at the easier shot at the vacated center, that the Russian keeper still had the time to react to and save with a skillful kick.
It’s a show of player and goalie skills. Rock/paper/scissors is not.
To be honest, I have to admit that I did overlook one very important point in my “dis soccer thread”, and that is, THEY PLAY THE DAMN GAME. The NBA has so many timeouts in the last 3 minutes that it takes 15 minutes to play those 3 minutes. Also, teams that commit a plethora of fouls are actually rewarded because they stop the clock and force the other team to hit two separate 15 foot free throws to earn those two points. The NFL takes 3 1/2 hours to play 60 minutes of football. At least in soccer, they start the first half and play it until it’s done, and then start the second half and play it until it’s done.
Of course, if it really makes it big time here in the states, they will probably change that with what they call “television timeouts” designed to cash in on sponsor generated money.
The problem is that modern goalkeepers are very good. They can cover pretty much every part of the goal. The probability of saves don’t change linearly with distance. If you add 2 yards and all of the sudden a keeper can read and react where the ball is going, then it won’t be 50/50, it’ll be more like 95/5 and we’ll be there all night.
If anyone can come up with a better idea for deciding ties than kicks from the penalty spot, please do share. If you succeed in doing so, you’ll become a rich man.
Unfortunately, over the past half-century, everything else that has been tried has been worse.
I guess I could live with having 30 minutes ET and then sudden death open play; for a WC Final or a Continental final. Not as a general rule.
I’m not asking for rule changes. If you want your lame, boring-ass sport to be decided in lame and boring ways, who am I to complain? At least it’s not cricket.
I like the women’s game best, no pretense … it’s a girly game … there’s no checking in women’s hockey either … but then again I think they ruined gridiron football when they outlawed biting …
Seriously though … the diving ruins the game … FIFA needs to review each game and suspend players who fake injuries … this means when a player is fouled, they need to jump right back up and continue playing unless they are in fact seriously injured …
More on-field officials would be helpful … even baseball adds two extra umpires during the World Series … ice hockey has an extra referee these days … and gridiron football has an elaborate video review system in place …
Can’t think of any Pit-worthy things to call the OP right now … so I’ll punt and use the old stand-by “your feet stink too” …
“Go away, or I shall taunt you a second time-a.”
Well it is the most strategically deep sport and it can be a lot for some people to take on board.
Ah, good sir, you are forgetting the double switch in National League baseball. A move of such strategic import that it is very important to know when and how to do it, and enables NL fans to look down on AL managers.
well, the NHL has (short) TV timeouts, but I’ll take that over having the players’ uniforms plastered with so many sponsor logos you have to actually look over the whole thing to figure out what team they are. all of the pics I see from a GIS of Manchester United make it look like at first glance they’re the “Chevrolet FC.”
pfft, if it can be explained in a few wiki paragraphs it is scarcely a issue at all. In test cricket the strategic considerations begin at the point of preparing the grass pitch itself.
what is a “GIS”?
Neymar sucks.
That’s just a page of Manchester United related images. I get nothing related to football when I google GIS, what does it stand for?
This was one of those over played injuries trying for a foul call?
Soccer is the only sport worse than Basketball for that crap.
Enjoy the lack of advertising on North American pro sports jerseys while you can - those days are obviously numbered, right? NHL’ll be the first to succumb to such shittiness.
And not just a small logo on the shoulders or on the hip. Jerseys will plastered with shit like they are in Europe; for all we know the Yankees logo could eventually end up getting replaced by a fucking Depends logo.
/hopefully end of derail and back to what a remarkably terrifying bad guy Novelty Bubble is.
The horrors (yes, plural this time)…oh the horrors.