Now, some of Americans' dissatisfactions with soccer could never be allayed by changes to the game. I can't see how the lack of fine-grainedness in scoring, for example, could ever be fixed without changing the game utterly, nor do I think it should be. One of the best features of soccer is how all-important a single goal can be, and Americans can appreciate that. But most of them, I think, could be solved with simple rule changes that I'm shocked haven't already been made (but I realize that's my idiosyncratic American shock at the refusal of a deeply traditional game to innovate). Here are the five simple rule changes that I think would turn soccer into a much more appealing sport, especially to Americans.
1. A public game clock that stops.
2. Instant replay.
3. Severe penalties for flopping.
4. More substitutions.
5. Games decided in overtimes, not on penalty kicks.
1. It's so simple that it sounds like a truism to most Americans, but if you have a timed game, you should have an official timer, and an official time kept on a scoreboard for everyone to see. And that clock should always stop when play is not going on. If there were a person whose job it was to instantly stop the clock when the ball is kicked out of bounds, when a player goes down with an injury, when a foul is called, so many problems would be solved, and so much more drama would be created. Time-wasting tactics would end, because the clock would stop if you faked an injury, and the clock would already be stopped while you were taking your sweet time setting up a free kick. On the other hand, when a team, and the crowd, knows there are exactly 28 seconds left in a game, it creates a drama and urgency that the ends of soccer games don't always have.
2. Instant replay would end a lot of the ugly flopping and cheating (not to mention bad offsides calls), and ensure that a big game is not decided on one bad call. If coaches had a challenge option as they do in American football, where they have, say, three red flags they can throw during the game if they think their player was fouled, was actually onside, or an opposing player flopped, that would immediately discourage all the shady dealing that goes on, and ensure that the big, important calls are gotten right.
3. Nobody would flop if they knew that, if they were caught, they'd get a red card. So make flopping a red card offense; in combination with instant replay, that will scare players out of dishonesty, because the penalties would be too great. Alternatively, institute a rule that if a player is down for more than one minute, he must be removed from the game and replaced with a substitute. I bet you'd see a lot of players getting up faster from their supposedly life-threatening injuries if you did that, and viewers would thank you for lessening the time they have to watch a guy writhe on the ground in fake pain.
4. Why not allow unlimited substitutions in soccer? In ice hockey, teams manage to sub players in and out without clock stoppage, and it's actually kind of fun to watch them execute a line change. If not unlimited, why not, say, 10 per game? It would vastly improve the quality of play in the late game--instead of a bunch of incredibly tired players wasting time and generally playing slow, careless, boring soccer, you've got a bunch of fresh subs doing their damnedest to tie the game, or preserve a victory. Plus, you'd add a lot of strategy, in that with more substitutions, you could bring in more specialized subs; coaches and fans would have a lot more to think about and discuss.
5. Penalty kicks are dumb. The game of soccer should be decided by soccer. Play sudden-death overtime after sudden-death overtime until someone scores a winning goal. It's important to note, though, that the implementation of this change relies on change 4 above. The reason you can't play endless overtimes in soccer now is that most players are dead tired after a couple of them. But, with more subs (and additional subs allowed for each overtime period), you can play forever. And even if you end up with really tired players after 5 or 6 overtimes, what's so bad about that? The fittest team, the one that can play decent soccer the longest, will win, which is fine by me. Other than eliminating penalty kicks, the great thing endless overtimes would do is put a stop to the kind of carelessness you see in soccer overtimes currently, where all the exhausted players are just kind of treading water, trying not to lose, because they know penalty kicks are coming. If they know that they have to actually score a goal to win, they'll play much more exciting soccer.
Will these changes happen? Probably not. As I said, soccer is a deeply traditionalist sport, and deeply resistant to change, unlike American sports. But, hey, for all I've said, soccer's okay the way it is, at least as I personally am concerned. I love the sport--it has so much tension, so much amazing athleticism and skill, so much heroism--and will continue to watch it and cheer for my teams. It just could be so much better, and could really appeal to Americans as a whole, and it kills me when I contemplate how few and minor the changes are that would accomplish that, and yet soccer's unwillingness to change at all. For me, soccer is like an underachieving, alcoholic uncle who I'm rooting for nonetheless because he's got a great heart.
Tell me your ideas for changing soccer, and your personal feelings about soccer as it is, and then we'll move on to new topics (yay)!
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