Soccer rules I would change

[The Great Snook]

I coach little Snook's soccer team and have developed a lot of respect for the game. I have been watching a lot of the matches in this year's world cup and as much as I have enjoyed myself, I know countless others who couldn't care at all.

Today's match between Germany and Italy summed it up for me.

The game went almost 120 minutes before anything happened and if it had gone to penalty kicks, that would have been a very disappointing ending.

I don't know if the rules of soccer have ever changed, but here are a few of my observations.

1. I think there are to many people on the field. With fewer players there would be more open space and therefore more action.

2. All of the flopping offends me. I know the ref can give a yellow card for someone who flops, but that is basically a useless penalty. I would consider changing the rule that anyone who goes down with an injury (real or fake) must leave the field for ten minutes. That would surely stop people from faking injury if they knew they would be putting their team a man down.

3. More substitutions. I am very impressed with the athleticism of the players as that is a really long time to run around. However, as they get tired they get sloppy. They seem to have trouble kicking straight and passing. Why have an entire team if you can only play 14 guys in a match.

4. Fouls- As best as I can tell there is no consequence to a foul except the other team gets a free kick. It appears that you can commit an unlimited number of fouls. Wouldn't it make more sense to adopt from basketball a certain number of fouls before ejection or some sort of other penalty. I am thinking of the Portugal/Netherlands game. If every ten fouls a team got a penalty kick, that nonsense would never happen.

I apoligize in advance to the soccer purists, but these are just some observations I've had over the past few weeks.

[Register]

Disagree on all points, except number 2. Would reduce it to a five minute timer though.

[Harbourboy]

Anything that reduces the amount of fake diving, I would be in support of.

[teekc]

1 - the number of players is fixed. i don't think anyone can do anything about that anyhow. You can, at most, expand the field if you want. But then, the ball is that small. When it is in a place and players crowd to the ball, it will be crowded no matter what.

2 - that i think has been taken cared of in another way currently. Once a player is injured, the ref. calls in medic, the player has to leave. The player can only come back in after acknowledgement from the ref.

3 - subs number differs. Charity shield gives you 5 or 7 subs; friendlies, 10. The formal 3 subs are there for more of tactical and injury reason rather than replacing tired players. International tournament lets a team to register 23 players. If you think about it, it is not a lot. Only one backup for each position. In Euro cup 96, German suffers so much injuries and bans that backup keepers were given normal player jersey. European (club) Championship lets a club register (i think) 25 players. Registered player is one thing, the registered you can bring to match is another. Mostly, for club matches, you can only bring 5 players. So, an "entire team" is not a lot. In football, starting players weight a lot, more so than, say, basketball. Every game has its unqiue ways of demanding its players, and this is football's way. There are, however, voices to add an additional sub if the match goes into overtime.

4 - You cannot avoid foul, even if there is a limit on fouls per player. Free kicks can be dangerous too, if the foul is commited in a wrong place. That's why dead ball specialist worth something in football too. 01/02 season, Valencia vs Deportivo, Pablo Aimar's free kick (a very tough free kick i might add) puts Valencia in the first place and won the league for the season. That's the consequence of a foul and a free kick. i don't mind fouls, players push each other around, that's the nature of the game. If there's a limit on foul then you need to redefine foul and normal pushing around wouldn't be foul anymore.

in addition,
there is a need to legally define the name of the game, football. There were several standard mandarin names/translation for Disney. The company legally standardize its chinese name years ago. So, i am sure it can be done.

You can punish a diver as harsh as you want. The problem is, it's very hard to spot a skilled diver.

[ July 05, 2006, 04:01: Message edited by: teekc ]

[Register]

2 - that i think has been taken cared of in another way currently. Once a player is injured, the ref. calls in medic, the player has to leave. The player can only come back in after acknowledgement from the ref.

Actually, that has changed for this tournament and for the future. When the player is "ok", he can just waltz in like he owns the place.

[Harbourboy]

it's very hard to spot a skilled diver.

Not on video replay, it's not. You can clearly see the daylight between the defender and the diver in slow motion.

[teekc]

i don't like video replay (and even micro chip inside the ball). It takes away the human error from a human sport.

[Harbourboy]

If you like human error then you should make sure you never criticise a referee any more. If you like human error but still want to get rid of playacting and diving then you need to give the refs more power to book divers and then be happy to take the risk that some people will get booked when they have in fact fallen over naturally. Maybe this will encourage people to not be so clumsy, if they know there is a risk of being booked for falling over. You'd only fall over in agony if you'd really been fouled intentionally hard, in which case, it should be obvious that the fouler should be booked.

Less falling over and more actual soccer action!

[teekc]

you don't see me criticising referee, yes? i cheer for them.

actually, just a moment ago, i was thinking, video replay can be used after the match, something similiar to totti's spitting and frings punching. Treat diving subjected to disciplinary action.

[Sydax]

I agree with teekc; if video can't be used on-game, then there should be a post match disciplinary comitee, so if a player take a dive and gain something like a free kick and the other player gets a yellow/red card, there should be a disciplinary action against the diver and a rectification for the punished player.
That should stop the diving, but just in case, whenever a player starts to be in serious pain (in most cases for nothing as you can see in replies) they should be taken out the field for 10 minutes; yes, that should be unfair for 'real-in-pain' players, but hey, there are a lot of unfair things anyway.
This world cup made think another new rule: no more penalty kicks if in 120 minutes the game is stil tied. Fifa always says that they promote the attacking football, more goals whenever is possible (that's why the new ball in the world cup) so, after 120 minutes, someone that watched the game on tv, should thell the ref which team tried to score more, that should mean, a shot stoped by the goal keeper; that should stop boring 120 minutes games with teams that just want to play the penalty kicks.

[Harbourboy]

Of course video can be used in the game. Most other major sports manage to do it.

What I find interesting here is that it is usually ME who is accused of being the boring old luddite traditionalist, desperately clinging to the good old days.

Yet, here it is YOU soccer fans who are so blindly refusing to accept that is the 21st century and that there is the possibility that technology exists that can make the game you love even better. Cricket, rugby union, rugby league, and probably several American sports all have managed to integrate technology in ways that have made the games better. Why should soccer be the one to stay stuck in the past?

[joacqin]

Snook, I would like to start this post by saying that you should be drawn and quartered for spouting such heresy.

1. The amount of players is "hard coded", it is not football/soccer if there are less than 10 players out on the pitch when the game starts. Football is already a game where there is more space than most other games I have seen.

2. I kinda agree here but the flopping as you call it ties into both points 1 and 3. Half the time they lie down and hold their leg those extra seconds to catch their breath and so on. I have seen a horrendous example of the "nail these diving sissies" mentality. Game in the Swedish league, player falls in the penalty area, gets a yellow card for taking a dive it was his second and he is sent off. He has to be carried off on a stretcher and the replay shows that he took a nasty wrong step and twisted his ankle badly and is unable to play for a couple of weeks. It is a very tricky situation.

3. Back in the day you werent allowed any substitutions, not even for injury. Then the rules got softened up and you could substitute players unable to continue and today you get three subs to use as you please. If you are a footballer and get paid for it you should be able to run for 90 minutes. Also if you want a more open and interesting game less subs is actually the way to go. The most goals are scored at the end of games when players are tired and make mistakes. You make more defensive mistakes due to being tired than offensive seems to be the trend. More subs would allow teams to keep 100% focus for entire games which would lead to less scoring.

4. The penalty for fouls is quite harsh it is, sure a free kick in hte midzone aint much of a threat the closer you creep to the penalty box the more dangerous it becomes. It is also important to keep the flow in the game, football is a game that flows and is played in two big chunks contrary to for example ice hockey which is played in short 1-3 minute bursts. I find this to be an integral part of the game and adding more penalties for fouls would chop up the game too much for my taste.

[Harbourboy]

It is a very tricky situation.

No trickier than it is to police anything else in soccer, but you get the added advantage of having less frivolous girly belly flop diving.

[Pac man]

Well, Snook does make a good point, something has to be done, that's for sure. It's a shame that a team like Portugal can cheat it's way through a tournament without getting sanctioned one way or another.

[The Magpie]

1. Like joacqin says, football is 11 -v- 11, that's the way it is. But making people lay wider pitches to encourage attacking play could be done (in the same way that the Highbury ground was legendarily narrow - to help bolster the Gooner's boring, boring defending!), and a return to good, old-fashioned wing play would be a welcome spectacle, I think.

2. Well, this rule has been around for a while now, and - it's fair to say - has had a rather "mixed" reception... i.e. most fans think it's stupid. I mean, everyone can see the point to it, but the implementation is just a bit too clumsy. Personally, I believe that dishing out cards after the event on the basis of action replays is a sensible thing to do. Diving may still carry immediate advantages, but if clubs realised that they were going to start losing a lot of their best players to suspension that way, you can bet it would start diminishing. Fines don't achieve anything when there's such obscene amounts of money sloshing about at the top end of the game.

3. I was actually discssing this with a mate last night, while watching the game. I wouldn't agree with having more subs in normal time, but maybe an extra one substitution allowed in extra time would liven things up a bit... or if they played next-goal-wins after 30 minutes of extra time, to avoid the lottery of penalties (but maybe I'm only saying that because I'm English! )

4. A player can be cautioned for persistent fouling. That, and loss of possession, is enough of a penalty. If you want to avoid breaking up play, then it would be best to try and encourage referees to make more use of the Advantage rule, which would mean less stoppages, the attacking team retaining greater momentum, and less weight placed on set-pieces, which (IMO) makes for some very unattractive football and is half the reason for diving anyway.

[Register]

Magpie, the thing is, penalties is not a lottery. Some teams are good at it, such as Germany and Brazil, and some teams are really bad at it, such as Italy and England. It's not luck, it's all skill.

[The Magpie]

The thing I think that penalties measure more than anything else - honestly - is fear of losing. Teams such as Italy and England have more negative attitudes (one way or another), and thus tend to suck at penalties. The only team England's beaten at penalties is Spain, who traditionally always conspire to bottle their opportunities at the Quarter-Final stage anyway. Similarly, Italy have only got past the Dutch, who managed to perform spectacularly badly from the spot (I believe Jaap Stam's effort is still in low-Earth orbit, in fact ). Brazil, on the other hand, are just so happy to kick a ball under whatever circumstance that they feel no fear. The Germans are so efficient and single-minded that the thought of missing wouldn't be entertained for a nanosecond. In fact, only one German has ever missed a penalty in a shoot-out, in that match against France where the goalkeeper Schumacher tried to decapitate Batiston, only for the referee to calmly wave play on. I forget the bloke's name, though. To look at an England penalty taker (e.g. Lampard) is to look at an emnodiment of fear of failure, and the inevitably that brings of the fear itself being realised.

[Barmy Army]

'We waited 120 mins before something happened'? We must have watched different games, as the Italy v Germany game I watched was riveting stuff from the first minute...

From your points, the changing the amount of players is ludicrous. Giving 'injured' players 5 minutes out is something I would support. I wouldn't bring in more subs. Also, if a player makes repeated fouls then he will get yellow carded, so that's that last one sorted...

[Register]

I agree with BA; games that end with a penalty shootout doesn't have to be boring. Even if they don't have the flair that players like Cristiano Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Rooney, Totti, Ibrahimovic, or Zidane can give out if they have the space, they have the intensity to top it, and if one is like me, the tactical game is almost as exciting as the flairfilled one. You may not have liked England - Portugal, Germany - Argentina, or Italy - Germany, but I did. I found them amongst some of the more exiting games of the tournament.

Also, those teams that can play the most boring games are usually also those that incidentially suck at penalties, so they'll suffer from it anyway. Teams like Italy, England, and Holland. They can play really, really good football, but way too often, they don't.

[Aldeth the Foppish Idiot]

The rule changes I would recommend would be:

1. Go to overtime and eventually a shootout if needed in the first round matches. None of this "kiss your sister" tie business.

2. Eliminate shootouts completely after the 1st round. The games should all be won on the field during regular play. I don't care if they have to play 4 overtime periods. Just like in hockey. They don't do shootouts to decide games in the playoffs. I've seen playoffs games go into a 4th overtime period - suck it up and play until someone wins.

[Barmy Army]

That's silly, Aldeth. A game could go on all day with no conclusion and the players would be endangering their health. This isn't American Football or Ice Hockey where it's all stoppy starty and the players stop for a break every 2 minutes.

[Pac man]

If it's up to the Americans, they'd turn this game into a freak show in no time. Do you HAVE to bend and twist the rules before there's a slight chance y'all might start to like this game ? I mean come on...you already raped the concept of penaltykicks with starting to dribble from midfield and try to outplay the keeper, that's directly copied from hockey. Why don't you just give up and stick with baseball ? It's obvious that Americans and football is bound to be a rotten marriage.

[dmc]

I couldn't agree more, Pac Man, so stop trying to tell us what a great game this is when it is clearly nothing more than a cure for insomnia!

[Barmy Army]

But don't you ever feel a bit left out?
Even your fellow Americans are taking an interest in the Worlds Greatest Sport now!

[Aldeth the Foppish Idiot]

Perhaps I should explain myself in a bit more detail. The reason I dislike shootouts in the later rounds is for two principle reasons:

1. The outcome is determined by a player's ability in one very specific aspect of soccer - namely the ability to kick the ball into one of four corners of the goal. I guess I should say two abilities, as it also involves deceiving the goalie so that he doesn't know which of the four corners the kick is going to. Now, I may be an uncultured American, but my admittedly limited soccer experience has inclined me to believe that there is much more to the game of soccer than the ability to accurately kick a ball into the goal. It's a very important skill to master, but certainly not the only one.

2. Shootouts seem to be antithetical to the game of soccer, as it transforms what is an otherwise team sport into a one-on-one competition. Teams built around defense, precision passing, good shot selection are put at a distinct disadvantage to teams that play a run and gun style. The former skills are great for a team game, but useless in a shootout.