{"id":599,"date":"2014-07-12T09:31:28","date_gmt":"2014-07-12T14:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/?p=599"},"modified":"2019-02-18T09:36:20","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T15:36:20","slug":"three-rule-changes-that-would-improve-soccer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/three-rule-changes-that-would-improve-soccer\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Rule Changes that Would Improve Soccer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
The enormous pressure of a penalty kick<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Watching this year’s World Cup has been a great experience\nas there have been terrific matches and relatively little controversy as\ncompared to other years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soccer is obviously the world’s sport and the pageantry and\nvivid colors give the event great flair. \nHowever, there are 3 rules that I would love to see changed which would\nimprove the soccer experience without drastically changing the sport.  Any change is met with objection from the\ntraditionalists but I believe that these 3 changes would create a better\noverall game.  FIFA spent a lot of money\nevaluating and implementing goal-line technology, which had little need based\non this year’s games.  The changes below\nhave no real costs to implement but would have a positive impact on the games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Offsides<\/strong><\/li>
  2. Penalty Kicks during the game<\/strong><\/li>
  3. PK Shootout<\/strong><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Offsides<\/strong>?The\noffsides trap gives the defense an ability to make strategic plays and prevents\noffensive players from staying too far downfield.  But at a certain point, the current offsides\nrule limits creativity and clogs the field making attacking soccer more\ndifficult.  My proposal is that there can\nbe no offsides on any ball played from inside the 18 meter line from the goal\n(i.e. equal to the top of the penalty area). \nThis balances the need for the offsides trap while allow creative thru\nballs and flick headers within the penalty area that are currently ruled offsides.  Currently a ball played from 6 yards from the\ngoal to a player 3 yards from the goal can be deemed an offsides pass. This\nsignificantly hampers the offense’s ability to spread the field.  Ultimately, it also results in fewer goals\nand scoring opportunities because the defense doesn’t need to mark players and\nonly needs to play the ball.  This change\nwould allow the offense to find the space needed for more passing and creative\nmoves inside the area and on the wings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Penalty Kicks\nduring the game<\/strong>?Not all fouls are created alike. Some of those within\nthe area deserve a penalty kick and some of them do not.  The difficulty, is that the referee is\ncurrently given no discretion to decide which is which.  So while giving referees more discretion is\nrarely a popular option, this proposal would accomplish a few things.  First, it would ensure that incidental hand\nballs, or fouls on the edge of the penalty area in non-attacking positions\nwould not require a penalty shot.  They\nwould be rewarded with a direct free kick just like elsewhere on the\nfield.  The fouls or hand balls in\nscoring position or directly denying a scoring opportunity would still result\nin a penalty kick.  Second, it would\nallow the referee to make more of the calls that currently go un-whistled.  Currently, if a ref sees an incidental foul\nor a marginal call, they ignore it and don’t blow the whistle because they are reluctant\nto award a penalty kick since it is almost an automatic goal.  By giving the referee this discretion, we\nwould see the proper fouls calls and the attacking team would still be rewarded\nwith a set piece in a dangerous spot.  It\nwould also remove some of the frustration of players who are fouled and not\ngetting the calls since the referee doesn’t want to award the penalty and it\nwould also reduce some of the diving in the area because getting a free kick on\nthe corner of the area is not worth as much as diving in order to get a penalty\nkick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    PK Shootout<\/strong>?You\ncan read my diatribe about overtime below and I recognize that proposal is far\nmore controversial, but this proposal is about the current shootout format which\nis really not equitable for the teams involved. \nOne team is always going first, the other always going second.  This results in particular pressures that can\nbe unfair as the shootout unfolds.  My\nproposal would be to move to a structure like the tennis tiebreaker\nformat.  Under this format, the shooting\norder would look like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    • Argentina<\/li>
    • Germany<\/li>
    • Germany<\/li>
    • Argentina<\/li>
    • Argentina<\/li>
    • Germany<\/li>
    • Germany<\/li>
    • Argentina<\/li>
    • Argentina<\/li>
    • Germany<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

      This would ensure that the pressure shifts between the two\nteams and one team is not always ahead or not always behind.  I think it would keep a more equitable\nbalance as the teams vie for the next round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      I have a couple of other more radical ideas that are worthy of\nconsideration.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Overtime<\/strong>.           While a penalty kick is okay as part\nof the sport, I hate to see sporting events determined with them just as I\nwould hate to see NHL playoff games decided on a penalty shot shootout.  Imagine Game 7 of the Stanley Cup decided\nthat way.  The pressure and tension in an\nNHL playoff game is difficult to replicate. \nBut I would rather see a Golden Goal format for overtime and a\ncontinuation of overtime until someone scores.  \nJust as an NHL game can go 2 or 3 overtimes, I think that would really\nenhance the sport as opposed to the penalty kicks.  I recognize it is more difficult to score in\nsoccer than in hockey and that unlimited overtime doesn’t wrap up in a nice\npackage for TV which currently allocates 3 hours for elimination round games (2\nhours for a regular game, plus 30 minutes of overtime plus penalty kicks).  However, if you are looking for other ways to\nencourage scoring in overtime you could allow free substitutions or choose my\nmost radical idea—remove one player from each team every ten minutes after\nthe initial 30 minutes of overtime.  The\nreduced number of players on the field would ultimately result in a goal more\nquickly than a full 11 v 11 format.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Substitutions<\/strong>.   The substitution rules are also outdated and I\nthink the game would be better served by following a format similar to baseball\nwhere subs can be freely inserted but the removed players cannot return to the\ngame.  The current rules give little\nflexibility to a manager who wants to strategically start with a focus on\noffense\/defense and retain the ability to change strategies mid-game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Enjoy the final. Let’s hope it is better than the last two Brazil\ngames.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Soccer is obviously the world’s sport and the pageantry and vivid colors give the event great flair. However, there are 3 rules that I would love to see changed which would improve the soccer experience without drastically changing the sport. Any change is met with objection from the traditionalists but I believe that these 3 changes would create a better overall game. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[322,290,11],"tags":[327,291,325,6,328,326,323,324],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}