The Judgment-Free Soccer Questions Thread

[InstaFace]

These are the same hands! Or at least arguing for the same conclusion

yeah, sorry, I just mean there are two camps who come at it differently but both are motivated to maintain the status quo, so anyone trying to shift it has a lot to overcome - both inertia, as well as philosophical belief about the importance of deterrence above fairness.

It's not high on my (relatively short) list of things to fix. The people who insist that soccer is fine exactly as it is, I find tiresome... but they are at least mostly right that a lot of casual-fan Americans tend to propose fixes that fail to account for a lot of what makes soccer a beautiful game and an enjoyable watch.

My priority list would go something like:

1. Move to 3 on-field refs. Better calls, better discipline, fewer mistakes that require video review.
2. Go to a penalty-box format for player discipline, instead of "stern talking-to, yellow card, red card". There should be a middle ground between "don't do it again, I really mean it this time!" and "you are ejected from the game without replacement and your team now has to play short a player". I think an orange card that means "you are ejected for 10 minutes and can then return" would be very useful to moderating the game and preventing cynical fouls, because refs are too hesitant to go to a red card today. I fucking hate cynical fouls to stop counterattacks. The NBA with their "clear path to the basket" violation, and NHL with penalty shots for tripping on goal-scoring opportunities and the like, both have the level of disincentive correct on those.
3. Regularly calling defenders holding and grabbing attackers (most often on set pieces, but also in run of play), as a point-of-emphasis with officials. Defenders are coached in their development to grab onto jerseys, and slow people down with tactics that will be just shy of what would force a ref to blow the whistle, and I think that sucks and results in less opportunity for great acts of athleticism. Would be helped by #2.
4. Something resembling MLB's luxury-tax system to balance the finances between teams in the same league. You'll never be able to legislate a fully equal salary-cap system, but the ossification of the team hierarchy has made for a lot less excitement unless you want to be a fan of a Superteam, which makes the whole system self-reinforcing. A few leagues do this a little bit but the amount of money generated by regularly participating in UCL or UEL really skews the fairness.
5. Oldschool-MLS-style penalty shootouts in knockout play.
6. If you commit a foul that actually injures an opponent to the extent that they have to leave the field (not just fake being injured to try and goad a card out of the ref), the player who commits the foul should have to leave the field as well until such time as the injured player is ready to return. Subject to some maximum time like 10' where it's clear they're just trying to keep the fouler off the field.
7. Two-level penalty box, the outer of which results in a 50-50 PK instead of an 80-20 PK, to disincentivize flopping by attackers who are on the periphery of the box and don't have a realistic chance to score.
8. Realistic amounts of stoppage time: basically, what we're seeing in this World Cup, which has shocked serious football fans, but I think is a lot more fair and prevents time-wasting. You don't see a ton of flagrant time-wasting in the World Cup, but man-oh-man do you see it in CONCACAF play and other levels of the game. If refs are strictly instructed to add up a whole lot of stoppage time, and add on time for anything that resembles time-wasting second-for-second, even if that means 15 fucking minutes after you hit 90', then it will be a big improvement. I don't want to take away refs' ability to end the match at their discretion, because I do think that's an awesome aspect of the game (you gotta stop the last attack, you can't just run out a clock), but I think we could stand to have a bit more soccer and largely eliminate tactical time-wasting.
9. Revert to 3 subs for ordinary league play. 5 subs just gives yet-another-advantage to superteams who can afford a very high quality bench. I doubt Leicester wins the EPL in 2017 if every team with more money than them got to make 5 subs every game.
10. Knockout-play overtime format: overtime begins 10-on-10, both teams have to remove a player before it starts. Every 10 minutes of overtime, both teams get a brief pause and have to remove one more player from the field. So e.g. minutes 20-30 are played 8-on-8. If any of these 10-minute periods end with a not-tied score, the game is over. After 40 minutes of Added Extra Time (the last 10 of which are playing 7-v-7 on a full-size field), if it's still tied, only then do you go to the penalty shootout. This makes AET likelier to decide the game in a manner that still involves playing soccer, opens up a lot of creative tactical possibilities, will be more fun to watch because attacks will be easier to create, and has fewer penalty shootouts deciding it.

I will argue with any serious soccer fan over the merits of those ideas. But people who (for example) propose a coach's-challenge system, or going to a strict stop/start clock with hard end times, I think usually fail to appreciate the parts of those behaviors that make soccer great. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with (for example) how infrequently goals are scored in the game. Yeah, some of the changes I propose will increase offense a little bit, but the most common complaint I hear from casuals is "nobody ever scores, games can end in ties, the games can even end 0-0!", and that just shows that they haven't been exposed to exciting, end-to-end action for games that just happen to end scoreless. Or drawn.

 

[Jim Ed Rice in HOF]

Thanks @SocrManiac and @InstaFace for the explanations.

 

[BrazilianSoxFan]

yeah, sorry, I just mean there are two camps who come at it differently but both are motivated to maintain the status quo, so anyone trying to shift it has a lot to overcome - both inertia, as well as philosophical belief about the importance of deterrence above fairness.

It's not high on my (relatively short) list of things to fix. The people who insist that soccer is fine exactly as it is, I find tiresome... but they are at least mostly right that a lot of casual-fan Americans tend to propose fixes that fail to account for a lot of what makes soccer a beautiful game and an enjoyable watch.

My priority list would go something like:

1. Move to 3 on-field refs. Better calls, better discipline, fewer mistakes that require video review.
2. Go to a penalty-box format for player discipline, instead of "stern talking-to, yellow card, red card". There should be a middle ground between "don't do it again, I really mean it this time!" and "you are ejected from the game without replacement and your team now has to play short a player". I think an orange card that means "you are ejected for 10 minutes and can then return" would be very useful to moderating the game and preventing cynical fouls, because refs are too hesitant to go to a red card today. I fucking hate cynical fouls to stop counterattacks. The NBA with their "clear path to the basket" violation, and NHL with penalty shots for tripping on goal-scoring opportunities and the like, both have the level of disincentive correct on those.
3. Regularly calling defenders holding and grabbing attackers (most often on set pieces, but also in run of play), as a point-of-emphasis with officials. Defenders are coached in their development to grab onto jerseys, and slow people down with tactics that will be just shy of what would force a ref to blow the whistle, and I think that sucks and results in less opportunity for great acts of athleticism. Would be helped by #2.
4. Something resembling MLB's luxury-tax system to balance the finances between teams in the same league. You'll never be able to legislate a fully equal salary-cap system, but the ossification of the team hierarchy has made for a lot less excitement unless you want to be a fan of a Superteam, which makes the whole system self-reinforcing. A few leagues do this a little bit but the amount of money generated by regularly participating in UCL or UEL really skews the fairness.
5. Oldschool-MLS-style penalty shootouts in knockout play.
6. If you commit a foul that actually injures an opponent to the extent that they have to leave the field (not just fake being injured to try and goad a card out of the ref), the player who commits the foul should have to leave the field as well until such time as the injured player is ready to return. Subject to some maximum time like 10' where it's clear they're just trying to keep the fouler off the field.
7. Two-level penalty box, the outer of which results in a 50-50 PK instead of an 80-20 PK, to disincentivize flopping by attackers who are on the periphery of the box and don't have a realistic chance to score.
8. Realistic amounts of stoppage time: basically, what we're seeing in this World Cup, which has shocked serious football fans, but I think is a lot more fair and prevents time-wasting. You don't see a ton of flagrant time-wasting in the World Cup, but man-oh-man do you see it in CONCACAF play and other levels of the game. If refs are strictly instructed to add up a whole lot of stoppage time, and add on time for anything that resembles time-wasting second-for-second, even if that means 15 fucking minutes after you hit 90', then it will be a big improvement. I don't want to take away refs' ability to end the match at their discretion, because I do think that's an awesome aspect of the game (you gotta stop the last attack, you can't just run out a clock), but I think we could stand to have a bit more soccer and largely eliminate tactical time-wasting.
9. Revert to 3 subs for ordinary league play. 5 subs just gives yet-another-advantage to superteams who can afford a very high quality bench. I doubt Leicester wins the EPL in 2017 if every team with more money than them got to make 5 subs every game.
10. Knockout-play overtime format: overtime begins 10-on-10, both teams have to remove a player before it starts. Every 10 minutes of overtime, both teams get a brief pause and have to remove one more player from the field. So e.g. minutes 20-30 are played 8-on-8. If any of these 10-minute periods end with a not-tied score, the game is over. After 40 minutes of Added Extra Time (the last 10 of which are playing 7-v-7 on a full-size field), if it's still tied, only then do you go to the penalty shootout. This makes AET likelier to decide the game in a manner that still involves playing soccer, opens up a lot of creative tactical possibilities, will be more fun to watch because attacks will be easier to create, and has fewer penalty shootouts deciding it.

I will argue with any serious soccer fan over the merits of those ideas. But people who (for example) propose a coach's-challenge system, or going to a strict stop/start clock with hard end times, I think usually fail to appreciate the parts of those behaviors that make soccer great. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with (for example) how infrequently goals are scored in the game. Yeah, some of the changes I propose will increase offense a little bit, but the most common complaint I hear from casuals is "nobody ever scores, games can end in ties, the games can even end 0-0!", and that just shows that they haven't been exposed to exciting, end-to-end action for games that just happen to end scoreless. Or drawn.

These would be hell to implement in a lower level league without financial support. You can't add all these new responsibilities to just the ref.

 

[Merkle's Boner]

I think the whole not knowing when the game will end needs to change now that we’re in the 21st century and most sports are timed down to the tenth of a second. The ref just controls too much of the flow of the game in soccer. What if, after the 45 minutes of regulation time elapsed, the ref determined how many added minutes there would be, and then the clock counted down to 0.0 from there? You might end up with some exciting buzzer beater opportunities.

 

[InstaFace]

These would be hell to implement in a lower level league without financial support. You can't add all these new responsibilities to just the ref.

I certainly wouldn't recommend them for a lower level league. Just the Big 5 + UEFA + official international competitions. Others could adopt them at their discretion.

Accessibility and cost of entry is a big thing soccer has going for it. What works for the EPL shouldn't have to work for the Chilean League, or the Japanese second division. But the same is true today of the cost to implement and run VAR.

And some of the above, of course, are cost free. Like orange cards, or just whistling defenders for grabbing until they stop.

 

[BrazilianSoxFan]

I think the whole not knowing when the game will end needs to change now that we’re in the 21st century and most sports are timed down to the tenth of a second. The ref just controls too much of the flow of the game in soccer. What if, after the 45 minutes of regulation time elapsed, the ref determined how many added minutes there would be, and then the clock counted down to 0.0 from there? You might end up with some exciting buzzer beater opportunities.

And then there is a big brawl in the added time that takes some time to sort. The game just ends with no extra added time?

 

[Merkle's Boner]

And then there is a big brawl in the added time that takes some time to sort. The game just ends with no extra added time?

Yes, in that once in a I’ve never seen it scenario, the game would end with no extra time. Or better yet, the game ends with a few minutes of 7v7 after a bunch of guys are given red cards.

 

[BrazilianSoxFan]

I certainly wouldn't recommend them for a lower level league. Just the Big 5 + UEFA + official international competitions. Others could adopt them at their discretion.

Accessibility and cost of entry is a big thing soccer has going for it. What works for the EPL shouldn't have to work for the Chilean League, or the Japanese second division. But the same is true today of the cost to implement and run VAR.

And some of the above, of course, are cost free. Like orange cards, or just whistling defenders for grabbing until they stop.

VAR just assures that the officiating in the game is closer to the ideal, while a change like a penalty box would have a much bigger influence on the game being played. You would have a different version of the game for the haves and another, worse in your opinion, for the have-nots.

 

[BrazilianSoxFan]

Yes, in that once in a I’ve never seen it scenario, the game would end with no extra time. Or better yet, the game ends with a few minutes of 7v7 after a bunch of guys are given red cards.

You've never seen any event in added time that could result in extra time being added? Even a VAR review could take multiple minutes to be sorted out. There is no need to have the ref constantly changing how many minutes are left.

 

[Merkle's Boner]

You've never seen any event in added time that could result in extra time being added? Even a VAR review could take multiple minutes to be sorted out. There is no need to have the ref constantly changing how many minutes are left.

Ok. Then the ref has the ability to stop the clock during extra time. With all due respect, I’m not sure this thread is for you, and it’s understandable. I assume you’ve grown up with football and it is more ingrained in who you are, being from Brazil. You seem to have had issues with most every suggestion made here.

 

[InstaFace]

VAR just assures that the officiating in the game is closer to the ideal, while a change like a penalty box would have a much bigger influence on the game being played. You would have a different version of the game for the haves and another, worse in your opinion, for the have-nots.

There's a cost to going from 1 center ref to 3, one that can't be borne except by very financially successful leagues. But there's no cost-related reason that a league couldn't go to a two-tier penalty box. You paint a few more lines on the field next time you chalk it, and done.

In any case, I didn't mean for this to become "InstaFace proposes a bunch of iconoclastic ideas". I meant them sincerely, so I'll leave the post up, but please interpret it mostly as me saying "I see opportunities to improve things, but only after years of closely watching and appreciating the game as it is today. And someone coming in as a casual fan probably isn't going to make good suggestions that start from a place of appreciation for how each aspect of today's game makes it better." Picasso said that "before you can break the rules, you must first master them", and there's an analogy here: before you can propose an improvement to the game, you must first deeply understand its nuances.

SocrManiac said upthread that there are 3 big problems in the game which make it ugly and drive away would-be fans while adding nothing: diving, cynical fouling, and time-wasting. I would add to that "crowding / intimidating the ref", though that's an aesthetic / American cultural quibble, more than a substantive problem with the proceedings of the game. But I think it's enough to say that "most soccer fans, even passionate defenders of the sport as it is today, would like to see those 3 reduced or eliminated. Opinions greatly differ as to how they could be solved, or even how big a problem they are overall." Would you agree, can we have consensus at least on that?

If most soccer fans can agree on that, then it'll answer a lot of casual fans' queries of "isn't this actually a problem?". We don't have to agree on exactly how we'd prefer it to be solved. But if NBA fans can admit "yeah officials call charge/block really inconsistently", or baseball fans can agree that some things have hurt how exciting the game is, surely we can at least give them that introspective admission that there are legit flaws in football, while also defending things like the ref's discretion on ending the game, and defending the game's beauty overall.

 

[InstaFace]

Ok. Then the ref has the ability to stop the clock during extra time. With all due respect, I’m not sure this thread is for you, and it’s understandable. I assume you’ve grown up with football and it is more ingrained in who you are, being from Brazil. You seem to have had issues with most every suggestion made here.

His opinion that there's nothing wrong with the ref-clock is just as valid as anyone else's (and one that I think you'll find is supported by a sizable majority of serious soccer fans, myself included). If we're not going to judge good-faith questions from casual fans in this thread, I don't think we should be criticizing good-faith answers either, even if you're not satisfied by them.

I made a bunch of semi-iconoclastic suggestions upthread and BSF, while perhaps apopletic at some of them, engaged on the substance and was respectful. I'm sure the rest of us can do likewise for the perspectives of longtime fans who've grown to understand and appreciate the game as it is today.

 

[BrazilianSoxFan]

Ok. Then the ref has the ability to stop the clock during extra time. With all due respect, I’m not sure this thread is for you, and it’s understandable. I assume you’ve grown up with football and it is more ingrained in who you are, being from Brazil. You seem to have had issues with most every suggestion made here.

I've probably watched a lot more American football than football in the last few years.

What I'm trying to make it clear here is that football isn't like the American sports, where they are only really played in structured environments with lots of money involved and where the spectator is king. When you try to propose a change to this sport played by billions, you should be wary of any rule change that has an economic impact.

 

[DJnVa]

Agreed. Somewhat strangely, the indoor soccer place I've been playing at for 20 years decided to adopt the 1-v-1 shootout approach in lieu of PK's this season. I can't find anything broader in terms of official rules on that issue, so it must have been an in-house decision. As a goalkeeper, I love it. I think it utilizes a completely different set of skills and less random luck. I feel I have a considerably better shot at saving a 1-v-1 than I would a PK from the spot.

Our league did that for one season. I'm also a keeper, but never had a chance to face it.

Ours was actually a "live ball"--just that one player got a head start with everyone else behind him.

 

[singaporesoxfan]

yeah, sorry, I just mean there are two camps who come at it differently but both are motivated to maintain the status quo, so anyone trying to shift it has a lot to overcome - both inertia, as well as philosophical belief about the importance of deterrence above fairness.

It's not high on my (relatively short) list of things to fix. The people who insist that soccer is fine exactly as it is, I find tiresome... but they are at least mostly right that a lot of casual-fan Americans tend to propose fixes that fail to account for a lot of what makes soccer a beautiful game and an enjoyable watch.

My priority list would go something like:

1. Move to 3 on-field refs. Better calls, better discipline, fewer mistakes that require video review.
2. Go to a penalty-box format for player discipline, instead of "stern talking-to, yellow card, red card". There should be a middle ground between "don't do it again, I really mean it this time!" and "you are ejected from the game without replacement and your team now has to play short a player". I think an orange card that means "you are ejected for 10 minutes and can then return" would be very useful to moderating the game and preventing cynical fouls, because refs are too hesitant to go to a red card today. I fucking hate cynical fouls to stop counterattacks. The NBA with their "clear path to the basket" violation, and NHL with penalty shots for tripping on goal-scoring opportunities and the like, both have the level of disincentive correct on those.
3. Regularly calling defenders holding and grabbing attackers (most often on set pieces, but also in run of play), as a point-of-emphasis with officials. Defenders are coached in their development to grab onto jerseys, and slow people down with tactics that will be just shy of what would force a ref to blow the whistle, and I think that sucks and results in less opportunity for great acts of athleticism. Would be helped by #2.
4. Something resembling MLB's luxury-tax system to balance the finances between teams in the same league. You'll never be able to legislate a fully equal salary-cap system, but the ossification of the team hierarchy has made for a lot less excitement unless you want to be a fan of a Superteam, which makes the whole system self-reinforcing. A few leagues do this a little bit but the amount of money generated by regularly participating in UCL or UEL really skews the fairness.
5. Oldschool-MLS-style penalty shootouts in knockout play.
6. If you commit a foul that actually injures an opponent to the extent that they have to leave the field (not just fake being injured to try and goad a card out of the ref), the player who commits the foul should have to leave the field as well until such time as the injured player is ready to return. Subject to some maximum time like 10' where it's clear they're just trying to keep the fouler off the field.
7. Two-level penalty box, the outer of which results in a 50-50 PK instead of an 80-20 PK, to disincentivize flopping by attackers who are on the periphery of the box and don't have a realistic chance to score.
8. Realistic amounts of stoppage time: basically, what we're seeing in this World Cup, which has shocked serious football fans, but I think is a lot more fair and prevents time-wasting. You don't see a ton of flagrant time-wasting in the World Cup, but man-oh-man do you see it in CONCACAF play and other levels of the game. If refs are strictly instructed to add up a whole lot of stoppage time, and add on time for anything that resembles time-wasting second-for-second, even if that means 15 fucking minutes after you hit 90', then it will be a big improvement. I don't want to take away refs' ability to end the match at their discretion, because I do think that's an awesome aspect of the game (you gotta stop the last attack, you can't just run out a clock), but I think we could stand to have a bit more soccer and largely eliminate tactical time-wasting.
9. Revert to 3 subs for ordinary league play. 5 subs just gives yet-another-advantage to superteams who can afford a very high quality bench. I doubt Leicester wins the EPL in 2017 if every team with more money than them got to make 5 subs every game.
10. Knockout-play overtime format: overtime begins 10-on-10, both teams have to remove a player before it starts. Every 10 minutes of overtime, both teams get a brief pause and have to remove one more player from the field. So e.g. minutes 20-30 are played 8-on-8. If any of these 10-minute periods end with a not-tied score, the game is over. After 40 minutes of Added Extra Time (the last 10 of which are playing 7-v-7 on a full-size field), if it's still tied, only then do you go to the penalty shootout. This makes AET likelier to decide the game in a manner that still involves playing soccer, opens up a lot of creative tactical possibilities, will be more fun to watch because attacks will be easier to create, and has fewer penalty shootouts deciding it.

I will argue with any serious soccer fan over the merits of those ideas. But people who (for example) propose a coach's-challenge system, or going to a strict stop/start clock with hard end times, I think usually fail to appreciate the parts of those behaviors that make soccer great. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with (for example) how infrequently goals are scored in the game. Yeah, some of the changes I propose will increase offense a little bit, but the most common complaint I hear from casuals is "nobody ever scores, games can end in ties, the games can even end 0-0!", and that just shows that they haven't been exposed to exciting, end-to-end action for games that just happen to end scoreless. Or drawn.

Here are my thoughts on your ideas

1. I like the idea of additional eyes on the field, but I think 3 refs might hurt the flow of the game, particularly if the refs decide to split themselves into different portions of the field. I'd rather keep to one ref and perhaps one or two assistant refs that patrol each goal line
2. Sin bins are not a bad idea (I think Platini advocated them), just have to deal with what happens to goalkeepers, because I think 10 minutes of a goalkeeper in the sin bin is a bit too harsh. Also have to watch for unintended consequences, such as refs overusing the sin bin when they should have been actually sending the players off
3. I like this. The other thing is that some teams have been essentially setting NBA-style screens on set pieces (see Sergio Busquets running into Goretzka yesterday) and I think they need to call impeding more
4. I'll skip this, since it's about the game's economics
5. I like this - but were they actually good at producing decisive wins? The one thing that penalty shootouts have going for them is that almost all of them seem to finish within the 5 penalties per side
6. I feel like this would have unintended consequences. It's not just that players could game this to keep the fouler off the field. There's a whole category of fouls that actually injure a player but only slightly, and the current incentive is for the injured player to try to stay on - I suspect that such a rule change would incentivize such players to come off instead. It also creates an odd dichotomy where it's better for a player to injure an opponent to the extent that the opponent has to be subbed off
7. I hate this - as I said I don't think it's about whether it was realistic to score, but overall disincentivizing cynical play by defenders. I'll take the flopping as a tradeoff
8. Realistic stoppage time is great, at least as it's been done in this World Cup.
9. I do like having more subs, it gives an incentive to older and less fit players to go all out for a shorter time, instead of conserving energy
10. I'm not averse to the idea, but the Golden Goal experience has also shown me that soccer teams have a tendency to go conservative as a reaction to changes supposedly meant to incentivize offense, so I don't know if we'll see more attacking results. Cynically, I would imagine that the first person taken off would be the #11, then the #9, then the #10, then the #8. Which would not be fun (Edit: unless you're saying the people taken off in AET are in effect being subbed off and cannot take part in the penalty shootout)

 

[singaporesoxfan]

There's a cost to going from 1 center ref to 3, one that can't be borne except by very financially successful leagues. But there's no cost-related reason that a league couldn't go to a two-tier penalty box. You paint a few more lines on the field next time you chalk it, and done.

In any case, I didn't mean for this to become "InstaFace proposes a bunch of iconoclastic ideas". I meant them sincerely, so I'll leave the post up, but please interpret it mostly as me saying "I see opportunities to improve things, but only after years of closely watching and appreciating the game as it is today. And someone coming in as a casual fan probably isn't going to make good suggestions that start from a place of appreciation for how each aspect of today's game makes it better." Picasso said that "before you can break the rules, you must first master them", and there's an analogy here: before you can propose an improvement to the game, you must first deeply understand its nuances.

SocrManiac said upthread that there are 3 big problems in the game which make it ugly and drive away would-be fans while adding nothing: diving, cynical fouling, and time-wasting. I would add to that "crowding / intimidating the ref", though that's an aesthetic / American cultural quibble, more than a substantive problem with the proceedings of the game. But I think it's enough to say that "most soccer fans, even passionate defenders of the sport as it is today, would like to see those 3 reduced or eliminated. Opinions greatly differ as to how they could be solved, or even how big a problem they are overall." Would you agree, can we have consensus at least on that?

If most soccer fans can agree on that, then it'll answer a lot of casual fans' queries of "isn't this actually a problem?". We don't have to agree on exactly how we'd prefer it to be solved. But if NBA fans can admit "yeah officials call charge/block really inconsistently", or baseball fans can agree that some things have hurt how exciting the game is, surely we can at least give them that introspective admission that there are legit flaws in football, while also defending things like the ref's discretion on ending the game, and defending the game's beauty overall.

Interestingly enough, tying together a few of your thoughts, when England Football trialed the sin-bin idea it was specifically at the lower levels of the game, but also specifically only for dissent. I kind of like that - it's for issues of bad behaviour rather than bad football. From what I gather, they did it in part to help referee retention, which makes sense to me

https://www.englandfootball.com/participate/explore/inclusive-football/Respect/sin-bins

 

[SocrManiac]

Great reply, thanks. Do you have any thoughts on the second part of that question – which is, why is it seemingly only a problem in men’s soccer?

BTW, the NBA hasn’t solved this problem either, so it’s obviously easier said than done. But in that sport, two fouls on a star player early on in the contest can fundamentally change the course of the game because he has to go the bench.

Apologies, I didn't mean to ignore that.

I'm not as good as most folks around here at framing my thoughts. My instinct is to not touch this because I'm afraid I'll phrase something in a clumsy way that leaves legitimate room for misinterpretation or people questioning my motives.

I decided to dive into the statistics to see if any of my assumptions or gut feelings were accurate. The results of this is... I need to get back to work and some of this data is insanely difficult to find.

The 2019 WWC had a single yellow card for simulation out of 125 issued. Just one. In Russia in 2018, the men had (checks notes) 219 yellows. Fucking hell. I can't find a stat on simulation.

My random and unorganized thoughts/stats:

• The US on the men's side is far less theatrical. I think the same is true for the women. There's a cultural component to this in my mind, though I'm not sure how I can tie that together with objective evidence.
• There's a sample size issue at play. The US women represent the majority of my viewing. If that cultural component is real, I'm not going to see as much of it. I don't see the US women or the majority of the sides they play rolling around on the ground much.
• A WWC side that stood out to me for simulation was Brazil. I just checked the stats. They had eleven yellow cards in four games. They averaged 2.75 yellow cards per game.
  • Panama in the men's 2018 WC had 11 yellows in three games. That also dovetails with my memory.
• Men's WC games seem to average around 27 fouls per match. 2019 WWC was 20.58. The women's game is either less physical or less physically dirty. There may not be as many opportunities to go down clutching a fake injury.

 

[BrazilianSoxFan]

@InstaFace, have you ever heard of blue cards?

https://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/lawsandrules/laws/football-5-5/law-12---fouls-and-misconduct

Disciplinary Sanctions

The use of temporary time suspensions (‘sin bins) and the exclusion of a player arising from the issuing of a red card are the recommended disciplinary sanctions for use in small-sided football. Match officials should employ the use of temporary timed suspensions (blue cards) in all cases traditionally regarded as cautionable offences.

Referees shall also have the discretion to use a second ‘blue card’ and a further period of suspension for a second minor offence rather than a second blue card automatically resulting in a red card and permanent expulsion.

The options for a match official imposing disciplinary sanctions are therefore;

Player shown a blue card and temporarily suspended from play
Player issued with a discretionary second blue card and temporarily excluded from play
Player issued with a red card and permanently excluded from play
A blue card offence should always be accompanied by a temporary suspension from play.

The period of timed suspension in Small Sided Football shall be two minutes. The release of players from a temporary suspension should be at the direction of the Referee or a Match Official if one is available.

 

[DJnVa]

We used blue cards in indoor for a time.

 

[singaporesoxfan]

I think the whole not knowing when the game will end needs to change now that we’re in the 21st century and most sports are timed down to the tenth of a second. The ref just controls too much of the flow of the game in soccer. What if, after the 45 minutes of regulation time elapsed, the ref determined how many added minutes there would be, and then the clock counted down to 0.0 from there? You might end up with some exciting buzzer beater opportunities.

Going on my theme of unintended consequences, if you think timewasting is bad now, if players can see a clock and know how much time is left, my suspicion you're going to see even more timewasting, both the illegal type and the legitimate ones where the team in the lead plays more possession football and dribbles into a corner (whereas now there's always the risk the ref gives the team that is down a couple of extra minutes). I don't think there's really an issue with lack of urgency on teams who are down trying to score, so any excitement from a goal being a "buzzer beater" wouldn't be particularly different from a team trying to score in the 6th minute of added time

 

[Import78]

Here are my thoughts on your ideas
Sin bins are not a bad idea (I think Platini advocated them), just have to deal with what happens to goalkeepers, because I think 10 minutes of a goalkeeper in the sin bin is a bit too harsh. Also have to watch for unintended consequences, such as refs overusing the sin bin when they should have been actually sending the players off

I like the sin bin idea as well, but you have to sort out the clock management first, otherwise time wasting while you're down a man will be a big problem.

Most of the rest I agree with. I agree with BSF that the cost is a factor but I think the answer is that you just set them for the highest level and allow leagues that want to/can afford to to adopt them.

I definitely agree with the three biggest problems identified, and my wife (who never played and only watches when I do and she's in the room) feels the same. It might be worth breaking the improvement discussion out though since this thread is for the new fans to ask questions and this stuff might be a bit more than they bargained for.

 

[InstaFace]

Here are my thoughts on your ideas

1. I like the idea of additional eyes on the field, but I think 3 refs might hurt the flow of the game, particularly if the refs decide to split themselves into different portions of the field. I'd rather keep to one ref and perhaps one or two assistant refs that patrol each goal line

I think you'd end up with NBA-esque field mechanics for the referees, where the center ref does what he does today, and the new on-field ARs are positioned with one on each side of the field, rotating based on the ref's left-right positioning, and trying to stay out of the way while watching the spots that are harder for the center ref to see. The NFL has put a lot of thought into this.

I'll concede there's potential for it to be a disaster, but somewhere in the world should be willing to be an incubator of ideas.

2. Sin bins are not a bad idea (I think Platini advocated them), just have to deal with what happens to goalkeepers, because I think 10 minutes of a goalkeeper in the sin bin is a bit too harsh. Also have to watch for unintended consequences, such as refs overusing the sin bin when they should have been actually sending the players off

Agreed. I think with goalkeepers you can have an implicit understanding with referees that most such decisions should be either yellow or red. If a goalie gets an orange card, teams might have to burn 2 substitutions to replace one of the on-field players with the sub goalie, and replace the penaltized goalie with an outfield player who can rejoin the game 10' later. I dunno. It's probably a solvable problem though.

5. I like this - but were they actually good at producing decisive wins? The one thing that penalty shootouts have going for them is that almost all of them seem to finish within the 5 penalties per side

My recollection is that they converted PKs at much less than the ~80% rate of today's shots, but probably north of the ~35% conversion rate of NHL penalty shots. Either way, it's pretty likely that two random samples of 5 attempts yield different numbers of successes, and those outcomes will at least partially be down to the skills of the players involved and less about the goalkeeper guessing right.

6. I feel like this would have unintended consequences. It's not just that players could game this to keep the fouler off the field. There's a whole category of fouls that actually injure a player but only slightly, and the current incentive is for the injured player to try to stay on - I suspect that such a rule change would incentivize such players to come off instead. It also creates an odd dichotomy where it's better for a player to injure an opponent to the extent that the opponent has to be subbed off

You're right, the risk of it being gamed is very high, maybe too high to be worth trying. I just see the opposite right now - if you make a hard foul to try and hurt or intimidate a skilled opposing player, the goal is to either do it just shy of being card-worthy or to take a tactical yellow that you don't care about. I like a well-executed tackle as much as the next guy, but at the pro level I think we need further disincentive for tackle attempts that are likely to injure. We can workshop this.

10. I'm not averse to the idea, but the Golden Goal experience has also shown me that soccer teams have a tendency to go conservative as a reaction to changes supposedly meant to incentivize offense, so I don't know if we'll see more attacking results. Cynically, I would imagine that the first person taken off would be the #11, then the #9, then the #10, then the #8. Which would not be fun

Yeah, that would be a bad outcome, just like Golden Goal was. I will say that my hypothesis is that since teams will have to attack and defend with the players that are out there, even if they're attacking relying on defenders who aren't smooth about attacking moves, or will have to defend with attackers who are usually lazy in defense. If you're down to 8-on-8 or something, there will be oodles of room for (say) a fullback to just charge the length of the field and initiate an attack. I expect that teams will instead prefer to take out the most-gassed player on the field and figure out tactics based on who that leaves. I hope we see it tried out sometime!

 

[InstaFace]

@InstaFace, have you ever heard of blue cards?

https://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/lawsandrules/laws/football-5-5/law-12---fouls-and-misconduct

Cool! Glad to see it's not so outlandish an idea that it hasn't been tried already.

I agree with Import78 that you'd have to account for time-wasting during an exclusion period, though much like the game clock, that could simply be "the referee will indicate when the player is allowed to rejoin play, and nobody better give him any guff if it's a little longer if your team took 3 minutes to take a free kick".

Anyway I've reported my own post upthread to request that this be split out to make more room for questions.

 

[singaporesoxfan]

I like the sin bin idea as well, but you have to sort out the clock management first, otherwise time wasting while you're down a man will be a big problem.

That's why I liked the England football use of the sin bin, which was more to deter people from shouting at and crowding the refs - like the back pass to the goalie rule, that use of the sin bin was designed more to prevent the event from occurring rather than punish it. Maybe that's the way to start it off - use sin bins first only for behavioural fouls (dissent, simulation, timewasting), which addresses many of the most annoying parts of the game

 

[loshjott]

This is a good time to ask - why does everyone hate Ronaldo?

He seems like an ARod type, so maybe I'm answering my own question.

 

[singaporesoxfan]

This is a good time to ask - why does everyone hate Ronaldo?

He seems like an ARod type, so maybe I'm answering my own question.

Exactly.

Rep for diving, winking when he got Rooney sent off in 2006, whining, general self-congratulatory wankery

 

[luckiestman]

Exactly.

Rep for diving, winking when he got Rooney sent off in 2006, whining, general self-congratulatory wankery

It is mostly because he is handsome and awesome and he he knows he is awesome and he will let you know that he knows he is awesome and he backs it up. I don’t see the Arod comp. Closer to the reasons people hate Brady than Arod, imo.

 

[SocrManiac]

If not for a goofy, undersized guy from Argentina Ronaldo would he the undisputed footy god of his generation and perhaps all time.

Also, he seems like the type of guy that would dive to win a penalty in an 8-0 rout against an amateur team.

 

[BrazilianSoxFan]

If not for a goofy, undersized guy from Argentina Ronaldo would he the undisputed footy god of his generation and perhaps all time.

Also, he seems like the type of guy that would dive to win a penalty in an 8-0 rout against an amateur team.

And that's what made him who he is, instead of another Quaresma.

 

[luckiestman]

Also, he seems like the type of guy that would dive to win a penalty in an 8-0 rout against an amateur team.

This is supposed to be why people don’t like him not about why they should like him

 

[singaporesoxfan]

It is mostly because he is handsome and awesome and he he knows he is awesome and he will let you know that he knows he is awesome and he backs it up. I don’t see the Arod comp. Closer to the reasons people hate Brady than Arod, imo.

I mean, "handsome and awesome and knows he is awesome and will let you know he is awesome" says "A-Rod kissing the mirror" to me

 

[luckiestman]

I mean, "handsome and awesome and knows he is awesome and will let you know he is awesome" says "A-Rod kissing the mirror" to me

Nah, Arod was way too try hard. Arod and Russell Wilson are guys I would comp as similar.

edit: Let me say this another way. I’m a Yankees fan and also a fan of Ronaldo (because he plays for Portugal). I wish ARod had and played with the psychology of Ronaldo.

 

[VORP Speed]

If the very best World Cup squads played a full season in the Premier League, where would they finish?

 

[luckiestman]

If the very best World Cup squads played a full season in the Premier League, where would they finish?

That’s a fun question. I think a few years ago Spain would have been really good. I’m a casual, curious to see what the fanatics think.

 

[67YAZ]

If the very best World Cup squads played a full season in the Premier League, where would they finish?

Fun question. Ground rules - they keep the same manager and rosters, duplicated players exist in the league (eg, van Dijk is on the Dutch and Liverpool squads).

None of these squads are at City & Arsenal’s level right now, even accounting for more pray is time.

Brazil could def grind results with the midfield depth and challenge for top 4.

England under Southgate is definitely missing the Europa League on the last day of the season.

 

[SocrManiac]

If the very best World Cup squads played a full season in the Premier League, where would they finish?

Epic question. Maybe a trick question.

The thing typically dropping quality is the continuity and time together. If you let Brazil train like a club team for months or years on end they’d probably run rampant.

Spain in the early teens is a great comp because they were essentially Barcelona minus Messi plus Ramos and Casillas. They won everything.

 

[SoxFanInCali]

If the very best World Cup squads played a full season in the Premier League, where would they finish?

You'll always have an advantage with a rich club team that can buy a star for a position of weakness, while a national team has to make do with what they have available.

If they started the season the same way they started the World Cup (only a week or 2 to train together) they'd really struggle for a while. By the end of the season they'd be solid but still probably upper-mid-table.

Germany would finish 2nd in the Bundesliga behind Bayern, with a good percentage of players on both squads.

 

[SumnerH]

This is a good time to ask - why does everyone hate Ronaldo?

Multiple rape accusations through the years, including at least one reportedly ending with him paying the accuser a $375,000 settlement to get the case dropped.

https://web.archive.org/web/20170910221252/http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/der-spiegel-football-leaks-exclusive-cristiano-ronaldo-rape-allegation-a-1143910.html

 

[Shelterdog]

I'll ask it.

Wouldn't the game be better if you eliminated offsides? I fail to see why it would be a bad thing for a forward to be able to camp out near the goal.

 

[SocrManiac]

I'll ask it.

Wouldn't the game be better if you eliminated offsides? I fail to see why it would be a bad thing for a forward to be able to camp out near the goal.

Couldn’t you say that of any sport that employee it? American football or hockey, for instance?

 

[Shelterdog]

Couldn’t you say that of any sport that employee it? American football or hockey, for instance?

American football has no equivalent rule; teams dangerous dangerous deep threats by playing defenders deeper which opens up the field for more action.

I think hockey would also benefit.

 

[SocrManiac]

I guess I’d need to understand what you’re hoping to accomplish. What problem are we trying to solve? If it’s the absurdity of how the rule is called, should that be fixed instead? I suspect the unintended consequences of no offside rule aren’t what you’d intend (based on the history of why it was introduced in the first place).

 

[Shelterdog]

I guess I’d need to understand what you’re hoping to accomplish. What problem are we trying to solve? If it’s the absurdity of how the rule is called, should that be fixed instead? I suspect the unintended consequences of no offside rule aren’t what you’d intend (based on the history of why it was introduced in the first place).

It's that every damn exciting athletic downfield play gets called offsides.

 

[InstaFace]

American football has no equivalent rule; teams dangerous dangerous deep threats by playing defenders deeper which opens up the field for more action.

I think hockey would also benefit.

But every play in gridiron football starts with both teams on their side of the line of scrimmage. If one crosses early, it's a yardage penalty.

Imagine if players could start a play on either side of the ball, or moving at-will at the snap. Would that result in more scores? Probably. Would it be aesthetically pleasing? No. Would outcomes be based on random chase rather than play design and skillful execution? Probably.

Now consider the infield fly rule. It seems rather complicated, doesn't it? And when it's invoked, it seems to always penalize the offense - hey, it's an automatic out, that's lame. But if it weren't there, it would advantage the defense to manipulate the situation by pretending to drop a ball and then trying to get a double play when they only deserved one out. But hey, let's say we take away the infield fly rule. You'd have more exciting plays like that, with runners unsure of where to go, and desperately trying to avoid that double play. But you can't run early, or else he can just catch the ball and then double you off. Real catch-22. Exciting!

...well, not really, right? Observers of the game thought it unsporting, and it looks ugly to have players intentionally botching infield flies for tactical advantage. So they put a rule in place that creates the better-looking outcome, limited to the very limited set of circumstances where infielders would be manipulative like that.

Well that's pretty much the origin story of the offside rule in soccer. Lack of it created some ugly play, with a camp at each team's goal with an attacker or two and a defender or two plus a goalie, and people in the middle trying to hoof it to them to get a cheap score. I got nothing against a cheap score, on or off the field, but in neither place does it look good to an outside observer. It took away part of what made the game aesthetically pleasing, because the rules rewarded such play. So they change the rules, add the offside rule, and suddenly good attacking plays have to come from players who are at least level with the ball or the last defender. So scoring chances come from breakaways and from neatly working the ball around, rather than from camping the opposing goal. They had decades of experience watching the ugly thing develop, fixed it, and now we have decades of experience watching this better thing, with the offside rule. A glance at the history of the rule will show you that they've spent a lot of time tweaking it over and over again, with a lot of people within the game trying lots of different things until they largely settled on the current form in 1925 (with a tweak in 1990).

You'd no more get rid of that offside rule than you'd get rid of the infield fly rule in baseball, or the rule in gridiron football that everyone has to be on their side of the line of scrimmage at the snap. The developers of the rules of the game have gone through trial-and-error over generations to get it as close to optimal as they can.

 

[GB5]

Question: Do the professionals wear shin guards? I know high school kids wear them and college kids do, but uncertain if the pros at this level do? It is intertwined with my disgust for flopping. I understand that every hit is different in maybe hockey terms a 100 mph slap shot off the shin pad won’t hurt but a 2mph perfectly placed shot off the ankle directly may be a problem. However when I see these guys rolling on the ground in desperation after a cleat to the shin, I often wonder if they are actually hitting shin or the shin pad?

 

[singaporesoxfan]

I'll ask it.

Wouldn't the game be better if you eliminated offsides? I fail to see why it would be a bad thing for a forward to be able to camp out near the goal.

Eliminating the offside rule creates an unaesthetically appealing game. Everyone would try to hoof it forward to whichever strikers are camped out in front. And unlike in American football there’s no offseting advantage to gaining distance in the middle of the field, so basically you would end up with a game of very long kicks upfield

Even in American football offside exists, so we don’t have wide receivers camped out in the end zone before the snap

 

[singaporesoxfan]

Question: Do the professionals wear shin guards? I know high school kids wear them and college kids do, but uncertain if the pros at this level do? It is intertwined with my disgust for flopping. I understand that every hit is different in maybe hockey terms a 100 mph slap shot off the shin pad won’t hurt but a 2mph perfectly placed shot off the ankle directly may be a problem. However when I see these guys rolling on the ground in desperation after a cleat to the shin, I often wonder if they are actually hitting shin or the shin pad?

Yes they do, but while the laws of the game specify they have to wear shin guards, there’s no rule on their size and many players for reasons of mobility choose to wear pretty small ones that basically only cover the lower part of their shins.

The thing I was surprised to learn was how rarely soccer players wear a cup.

 

[InstaFace]

I've got a question of my own:

How the hell was Ghana's first goal today allowed to stand? My understanding of the rule changes from a few years ago is that any handling of the ball in the build-up, even if unintentional, must disallow a goal from that phase of play. The attacker cannot benefit from a handling of the ball, even if unintentional.

edit: hey, some better googling answered it for me!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgYUtFEQ9Bw

 

[SocrManiac]

Question: Do the professionals wear shin guards? I know high school kids wear them and college kids do, but uncertain if the pros at this level do? It is intertwined with my disgust for flopping. I understand that every hit is different in maybe hockey terms a 100 mph slap shot off the shin pad won’t hurt but a 2mph perfectly placed shot off the ankle directly may be a problem. However when I see these guys rolling on the ground in desperation after a cleat to the shin, I often wonder if they are actually hitting shin or the shin pad?

They wear shin guards. They’re borderline useless.

 

[SocrManiac]

I've got a question of my own:

How the hell was Ghana's first goal today allowed to stand? My understanding of the rule changes from a few years ago is that any handling of the ball in the build-up, even if unintentional, must disallow a goal from that phase of play. The attacker cannot benefit from a handling of the ball, even if unintentional.

Because it was an English ref and they’re contractually obligated to fuck up anything that can be seen as black and white under video review.