National Pride Aside, Soccer’s Arbitrary Rules Make It Hard To Watch
Like most Americans, I relished seeing the U.S. Men’s National team sending Iran packing with a 1-0 victory in the final game of Group B play at the World Cup in Qatar on Tuesday. The winner-take-all result put the U.S. in the final 16 knockout stage against the Netherlands on Saturday four years after the embarrassment of failing to qualify for the 2018 tournament thanks to a loss to that world power Trinidad and Tobago.
Old school national pride draws me towards the USMNT games, because it certainly isn’t the riveting nature of the sport. Eight years ago during my tenure at WFAN, I posted a column on how soccer isn’t exactly a made=for-TV event in this country (Lichtenstein: Soccer Is Boring TV, Which Is Why Most Americans Don't Care About World Cup - CBS New York (cbsnews.com). Boy, did I get reamed.
It doesn’t mean I was wrong. Before you get on my case for being the prototypical ugly American, I understand that soccer is the world’s most popular sport and has a dedicated and growing following in the U.S. I can also appreciate the beauty within the game, from small plays to the highlights like Christian Pulisic’s game-winning goal in the 38th minute, where he sacrificed his body by crashing into Iran goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand after his in-close strike (hopefully “Captain America” was honest in his social media post from the hospital where he was being treated for an abdominal injury that he’ll be active for Saturday’s match). But for me, such moments are too few and far between over a 90-plus minute slog.
It's the rules the game is played by. Many of them seem to be geared toward making it harder for fans to see the players use their skills to create magic. Coaches then have naturally reacted by prioritizing defending, so that every attack is like five guys taking on nine defenders packed in the box. No wonder I often fall asleep watching soccer.
In addition, there isn’t a sport where the rules are so arbitrarily conceived and applied. It’s never going to happen, but soccer would be so much better with the following tweaks:
1) Penalty Kicks
In their group stage opener, the U.S. was leading Wales, 1-0, when defender Walker Zimmerman fouled Welsh star Gareth Bale in the 82nd minute. Bale was about to receive a pass with his back towards the goal, but because the rather minor transgression (it was a foul, but, like many soccer stars, Bale was taught to master how to embellish the contact) occurred within the arbitrary confines of an 18 X 44 marking drawn on the field, what was about a 0.5% chance of a goal suddenly turned into an approximately 80% chance, or the rough equivalent of an NBA free throw, which Bale converted to earn a 1-1 draw. Of course, the one made foul shot among the 100-plus points scored by a typical pro basketball team is incredibly inconsequential when compared to a soccer tournament that has averaged about 2.5 goals per game total since 1998.
So how about moving the penalty spot back from 12 yards from the goal line to somewhere that would have a conversion rate closer to, say, 50%, to maybe 18 yards at the top of the box?
The games shouldn’t be decided by the team which does the best acting job. Iran spent the last ten minutes or so on Tuesday flopping around in the box hoping to draw a penalty from the referee or the VAR. I don’t begrudge them--it was probably their only shot at extending their run.
2) Offsides
As a hockey fan, I understand the concept of having the ball precede a player’s entry into the attacking zone. What I’ll never get is how soccer applies the infraction over each half of the field. How is it possible that a player could be standing onside and then be deemed offside a second later without moving an inch, just because the defenders stepped up?
The old American NASL, with FIFA’s blessing. used to have a 35-yard line offsides marker that superseded the midfield stripe for offsides rulings, but it was universally despised by purists and the experiment ended in 1982. Because everyone goes to soccer games to watch offsides traps.
With VAR, precious goals can now be disallowed upon review. According to ESPN, seven goals have been overturned at this World Cup because VAR can scan every inch of the field to judge that an attacking player was a hair offside. Just wonderful. Meanwhile, one incorrect offside flag was reversed, only because the Cameroon striker who was deemed the offending player scored immediately. But what about all the ongoing plays whistled dead that weren’t really offside? Oh well.
It's too much to ask for a drastic change to make soccer more like hockey, where you check for offsides once at the blue line and then everyone is good to go. However, anything that can reduce the area where offsides is possible, such as a 35-yard line, would be an improvement.
3) Free substitutions
U.S. High school soccer rules allow for unlimited substitutions. Why not? It’s a sport that requires tremendous fitness from stop/start exertions. Unfortunately, the pro game is set up to incentivize players to pace themselves. Where teams were allowed to replace three players in previous World Cups, Qatar’s extreme weather conditions forced FIFA to expand the allotment to five subs over three opportunities. Still, that’s only half the starting lineup (not including the goalkeeper) and, like in baseball, a removed player is not allowed to reenter.
There’s enough time on restarts to allow for more substitutions. Maybe don’t treat each one like a royal proceeding, where a sideline ref holds up a board to emphatically announce the new and removed players. Get them in and out. What’s the downside? It would seem to me that having fresher players on the pitch would be good for the game, especially in the latter stages where one run can ignite a spectacular sequence. And if a top player gets hurt in-game, you don’t have to play shorthanded while you decide whether he can continue. It’s not as big of a deal if he can reenter should he recover.
In football, you often see a wide receiver head to the sideline for a break after running one fly pattern. Not that he’s out of shape, but it’s better for the team to have the rested player in for the next snap. I’m not suggesting that soccer games be delayed any further than they already are (see below) but if your team has the ball on a restart, you should be allowed to sub quickly and freely.
4) Time transparency
Baseball is the only major team sport that plays without a time limit. As George Carlin joked when comparing it to football, “We don’t know when it’s going to end!” Despite its running clock, the same can be said for soccer.
Only a select few know the true length of any game because of an invention called stoppage time. You know, all the moments where the game can’t resume because an injured player is lying on the ground or there’s some other delay. They add those lost minutes to the end of every half. Until it’s posted, the length is never tracked for the public. Even the designated extra time is just a guestimate, because referees are guided to let attacks proceed. Have you ever heard a game-ending whistle just as a player was about to take a shot? No, it’s play on until the ref decides, “This is just too boring. Let’s call it.”
What’s so hard about stop time anyway? Is it too much to have the people tracking the extra time to instead press a button that stops the game clock for all to see? Supposedly, time wasted unnecessarily by a leading team can get added back into stoppage time. If players knew that the clock simply stopped, there’d be fewer instances of intentional delays and more action.
Or what poses for action in soccer.