The problem with this argument is that each team controls the ball for, on average, around 10 seconds or so before the other team gets the ball and tries their dithering around.
To me, this prevents a feeling of strategic play and suspense as the strategy unfolds to see whether it would be successful or not. It breaks down too quickly.
I think basketball suffers the same problem from the fan perspective (I enjoy playing both sports), each scoring sequence happens too quickly, and so that feeling of suspense about an unknown outcome never really gets a chance to build.
It’s a stupid suggestion that someone who doesn’t know dick about soccer brings up about once a month though. Just because it’s not exciting to you, doesn’t mean it’s not exciting. People who love the sport and actually watch and understand it find it to be fine just the way it is, no asinine adjustments necessary.
I wouldn’t call it a stupid suggestion (as previous respondent) but possibly misguided. From the point of view of a goalkeeper (I play as a goalkeeper (football, not ice hockey) and only with friends), we are what makes the sport what it is. I assume the same goes for ice hockey goalies too. I assume the original correspondent is American, and as such, if you get the chance to visit the UK, I’d like to have the opportunity to change your mind, come and have a game with us and try your hand in goal. Seriously. And if I ever go the US, I promise to go to a baseball game too, even though I don’t understand it!!
Unless there’s a rule I don’t know about, I’d expect teams to put at least two defenders all the way back at the goal to block almost anything from outside the box.
In effect, you’d have goalies, just without the use of their arms. Think pickup soccer.
Soccer would be pretty exciting if, instead of kicking the ball around, they threw it and ran with it. And maybe we could elongate it a little, make it more of a (just off the top of my head) kind of prolate spheroid.
I just said you would not be allowed to have people inside the box in front of the goal unless there were attackers in the area, not bothering to define what “in the area” means. That was to prevent players from functioning as goalies without being called such.
Soccer fans, I’m curious about your response to these points. Do you see any validity?
I was analyzing the various sports that I’ve watched that I didn’t play that often growing up and I don’t feel this way about all of them, and one of them (basketball) that I did play a lot, I feel the same way as I do about soccer.
This leads me to believe it’s not just a matter of what I grew up with.
Is that 10 seconds an actual statistic or just your estimate? Because it seems low to me, particularly for the quality European club and national sides. If you’re only keeping possession for 10 seconds, your passing sucks.
If teams don’t hire fat goalies, then how do you explain Martin Broudeur?
Stupidest idea ever.
Those nets aren’t as small as they look.
I like the fact that hockey isn’t as high scoring. It means a goal counts for more. It’s more challenging, and it gives you an excuse to jump up and down and scream “YES!!! GOAL!!!” (Trust me, I do that all the time)
You also have the opportunity of a shut-out, which doesn’t happen in pro-basketball. Here:
There’s also a picture of the net, to illustrate just how big it actually is.
(Dammit, I can’t wait for hockey season to start. Hell, I can’t wait for the preseason. :()
No. To be honest, I don’t understand how anyone could watch even a single moderately-competitive match and see any validity. I’m not even sure what else to say about it.
The pitch is 350 feet long, for one thing. If your keeper was the fastest person in the world and he picked the ball up and ran at a dead sprint to the opposite goal line, it would take him more than 10 seconds to score a goal. What kind of morons would these guys have to be to not be able to retain possession for at least that long on a field that size while they were just “dithering around”?
I’m watching an MLS game right now. I haven’t been keeping track religiously, but I’d say the average possession lasts around 15 seconds. MLS games tend to be a bit more direct, and therefore have shorter possessions, than say the Mexican league, but I wouldn’t say 10 second possessions is a ridiculous exaggeration. It’s certainly shorter than a minute.
I don’t think jumping from ten seconds to certainly less than a minute is a trivial leap, but ridiculous or not, it’s certainly flawed. It is not a problem that soccer has, compared to other sports, that normal gameplay does not result in a buildup of attack because teams don’t possess the ball for long enough.
