I know, I know. Yet again a long outdated post. But it's summer cleaning before I go back to school and have no time to catch up on stuff like this. Plus at least I post at all.
During the World Cup (you remember it? That 4-week period where I and other Americans suddenly cared about soccer, and everyone who actually cared about soccer hated us for it?), I wrote a lengthy article on the travesty that prevented Ghana from reaching the semifinals. I lamented that there was no appropriate penalty for what Luis Suarez did to prevent a goal. So I was very excited to see Joe Posnanski wrote pretty much the exact same article, albeit better and exponentially more widely read.
Still, nobody inside the game of soccer--players, coaches, former players, analysts--cared at all. In fact, most of them praised Suarez's ingenuity. But it was great to see that Posnanski, one of the country's most respected sports writers, and other media members felt exactly how I did.
And don't worry, soon enough I will go back to writing about the Twins, once I have finished catching up on these old things I've put off for far too long.
Showing posts with label soccer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label soccer. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Saturday, July 3, 2010
World Cup Review
Obviously, the World Cup is not yet over; Germany just took down Argentina 4-0, while Spain and Paraguay will match up shortly in the final quarterfinal game. But for me, my interest pretty much ended when the U.S. was eliminated. I've still been paying attention to the outcomes of the games, but it's hardly been the compulsive checking of scores and standings that I was doing during the group stages. I watched more soccer over this period of time than I ever had before, and it was more interesting and exciting than I expected. Yet, I couldn't help thinking that there would be some easy ways to improve the game and help increase its popularity (and yes, I know soccer is the most popular sport worldwide). Some parts of soccer, namely the low scores and hence the perceived boringness of the sport to many (especially Americans), are basic parts of the sport and thus not going to change. If someone finds soccer boring because the scores are usually 1-0 or 2-1, I'm not sure the sport can do much to draw them in. However, there are some things they can change in order to bring in fans, like me, who enjoyed the sport during the World Cup, but will quickly forget about it after the final next Monday.
I mentioned some of these suggestions in passing while watching some World Cup games with friends, and was met with fierce criticism from those friends who also consider themselves soccer fans. To me, these were pretty obvious, and harmless, suggestions to improve the game, but some soccer fans apparently consider them inseparable from the game. If there are any soccer fans reading this (which I doubt), let me know how you feel about them. I tried to limit the changes to ones that, in an analogical sense, I would at least consider in my favorite sport, baseball. For instance, I'm open to ideas that would speed up the game of baseball, such as limiting the number of pitching changes per inning, but I would never want to see a clock instituted for pitchers. In that same sense, I'm not suggesting anything revolutionary like adding a second goal to each side, but here are the things that I believe would improve the game:
1. More referees.
There were a number of high-profile blown calls throughout this World Cup, and while this may or may not be the norm, there is an easy way to make sure that it doesn't happen again: add more referees to the sport. The NFL uses a slightly smaller field with the same number of players and has seven referees. Baseball uses four umpires and adds two more for playoff games. The real key, though, is that in other sports the officials don't have to cover the same amount of ground as the players. In soccer, the head referee has to run up and down the field following the ball for 90+ minutes. They wouldn't even have to add an official, since soccer currently employs a fourth official whose sole role is, as far as I can tell, to hold up the scoreboard to show how much extra time there is. If it were up to me, I would add more than just one official, but to keep the change as small as possible, let's just say that we add one referee, so that there is one on each half of the pitch to go along with the two linesman. This should increase accuracy of calls by allowing each referee to focus on a smaller area. This increase in accuracy will produce another positive side effect: reduce the need for instant replay. One of the best parts of soccer, and one thing its diehards often point to in its defense, is the continuous action. For other sports, particularly baseball, I'm in favor of replay because there are very difficult to judge, yet clearly objective, plays that occur regularly (i.e., a close play at first base). In addition, other sports contain constant natural interruptions: baseball has the time between pitches, football the time between plays, and basketball the constant timeouts and out of bounds. Soccer, while it has throw-ins and free kicks, is very free-flowing and lacking in natural interruptions; to change that with replay would be to alter the whole pace and flow of the game. Also, soccer does not have many objective calls, which is what replay is best used for. Most of the calls in soccer, which are in regards to fouls, could be debated endlessly even upon watching replays. Of course, hand balls, offsides, and whether a ball crosses the line or not (Frank Lampard's shot comes to mind, though I'm sure that's a once in a decade type of missed call) are more objective, but the addition of an extra referee would help the referees make more accurate calls on those plays.
2. No penalty kicks.
Soccer has the worst overtime of any sport, period (well, hockey has a similar problem). To break a tie in a sport, you should have to play more of the game, not some schoolyard mini-game that kids lacking field space might come up with. Using penalty kicks in soccer is like deciding a basketball game by knockout. And, unfortunately, games are decided in this way all the time: semifinalist Uruguay has won their last two games on PKs and the 2006 World Cup final was famously decided by kicks as well. Considering the low-scoring nature of soccer, I don't really have a suggestion for overtime other than to just keep playing until someone scores. That may not be the ideal solution, but it's much better than using penalty kicks, which more closely resembles a game of rock-paper-scissors than soccer. To go along with this change, the golden goal should be re-instituted to overtime. I'm not sure why soccer went away from sudden death overtime (to give teams a chance on each end of the field?), but the excitement of a sudden death overtime would add even more to overtime. In a game with such little scoring, I don't see the need to give the other team a chance to come back.
3. Stop the clock.
I'm not sure how this made it down to the third bullet, as it's really the number one change that I think needs to be made. It really just seems absolutely ridiculous to me that nobody knows exactly how much time is left in the game. I know the running clock is an important aspect of soccer to its supporters, so we can keep the idea of extra time. However, instead of having the referee hold up an integer as a guess for the number of minutes lost due to injury, the exact amount of time that the ball was out of play due to throw-ins, goal kicks, free kicks, injuries and other stoppages in play should be kept track of and added at the end of each half. This would also basically eliminate the ridiculous time-wasting actions of players late in games, including players strolling off the field when being substituted for and going down with a career-threatening leg injury every other minute. I don't blame the players for these actions, as they're clearly within the rules and help their team, but it's extremely frustrating as a fan and a rule like this needs to be added in order to eliminate the incentive to do so. Finally, there needs to be a clear end to the game. For example, with three minutes of added time and the clock reading 92:50, Ghana won a corner kick its game last weekend against the U.S. They didn't play the ball in until the clock read 93:05, which means that really the game should've been over: the ball was out of play when the clock ran out. But the referee decided to let them play the ball in one more time. After he does so, how does he decide when to end the game? Does Ghana get one touch to score? Two touches? Until the ball leaves the penalty box? Until it goes out of bounds again? The point here is that no one knows when exactly the game is going to end. With the new extra time system described above, there will be an exact amount of extra time. My suggestion is that, once that time is reached, the game is over once the ball crosses over midfield, so that the attacking team has one last chance to put the ball in the goal, and there is a definitive answer to the question of when the referee should end the game.
I mentioned some of these suggestions in passing while watching some World Cup games with friends, and was met with fierce criticism from those friends who also consider themselves soccer fans. To me, these were pretty obvious, and harmless, suggestions to improve the game, but some soccer fans apparently consider them inseparable from the game. If there are any soccer fans reading this (which I doubt), let me know how you feel about them. I tried to limit the changes to ones that, in an analogical sense, I would at least consider in my favorite sport, baseball. For instance, I'm open to ideas that would speed up the game of baseball, such as limiting the number of pitching changes per inning, but I would never want to see a clock instituted for pitchers. In that same sense, I'm not suggesting anything revolutionary like adding a second goal to each side, but here are the things that I believe would improve the game:
1. More referees.
There were a number of high-profile blown calls throughout this World Cup, and while this may or may not be the norm, there is an easy way to make sure that it doesn't happen again: add more referees to the sport. The NFL uses a slightly smaller field with the same number of players and has seven referees. Baseball uses four umpires and adds two more for playoff games. The real key, though, is that in other sports the officials don't have to cover the same amount of ground as the players. In soccer, the head referee has to run up and down the field following the ball for 90+ minutes. They wouldn't even have to add an official, since soccer currently employs a fourth official whose sole role is, as far as I can tell, to hold up the scoreboard to show how much extra time there is. If it were up to me, I would add more than just one official, but to keep the change as small as possible, let's just say that we add one referee, so that there is one on each half of the pitch to go along with the two linesman. This should increase accuracy of calls by allowing each referee to focus on a smaller area. This increase in accuracy will produce another positive side effect: reduce the need for instant replay. One of the best parts of soccer, and one thing its diehards often point to in its defense, is the continuous action. For other sports, particularly baseball, I'm in favor of replay because there are very difficult to judge, yet clearly objective, plays that occur regularly (i.e., a close play at first base). In addition, other sports contain constant natural interruptions: baseball has the time between pitches, football the time between plays, and basketball the constant timeouts and out of bounds. Soccer, while it has throw-ins and free kicks, is very free-flowing and lacking in natural interruptions; to change that with replay would be to alter the whole pace and flow of the game. Also, soccer does not have many objective calls, which is what replay is best used for. Most of the calls in soccer, which are in regards to fouls, could be debated endlessly even upon watching replays. Of course, hand balls, offsides, and whether a ball crosses the line or not (Frank Lampard's shot comes to mind, though I'm sure that's a once in a decade type of missed call) are more objective, but the addition of an extra referee would help the referees make more accurate calls on those plays.
2. No penalty kicks.
Soccer has the worst overtime of any sport, period (well, hockey has a similar problem). To break a tie in a sport, you should have to play more of the game, not some schoolyard mini-game that kids lacking field space might come up with. Using penalty kicks in soccer is like deciding a basketball game by knockout. And, unfortunately, games are decided in this way all the time: semifinalist Uruguay has won their last two games on PKs and the 2006 World Cup final was famously decided by kicks as well. Considering the low-scoring nature of soccer, I don't really have a suggestion for overtime other than to just keep playing until someone scores. That may not be the ideal solution, but it's much better than using penalty kicks, which more closely resembles a game of rock-paper-scissors than soccer. To go along with this change, the golden goal should be re-instituted to overtime. I'm not sure why soccer went away from sudden death overtime (to give teams a chance on each end of the field?), but the excitement of a sudden death overtime would add even more to overtime. In a game with such little scoring, I don't see the need to give the other team a chance to come back.
3. Stop the clock.
I'm not sure how this made it down to the third bullet, as it's really the number one change that I think needs to be made. It really just seems absolutely ridiculous to me that nobody knows exactly how much time is left in the game. I know the running clock is an important aspect of soccer to its supporters, so we can keep the idea of extra time. However, instead of having the referee hold up an integer as a guess for the number of minutes lost due to injury, the exact amount of time that the ball was out of play due to throw-ins, goal kicks, free kicks, injuries and other stoppages in play should be kept track of and added at the end of each half. This would also basically eliminate the ridiculous time-wasting actions of players late in games, including players strolling off the field when being substituted for and going down with a career-threatening leg injury every other minute. I don't blame the players for these actions, as they're clearly within the rules and help their team, but it's extremely frustrating as a fan and a rule like this needs to be added in order to eliminate the incentive to do so. Finally, there needs to be a clear end to the game. For example, with three minutes of added time and the clock reading 92:50, Ghana won a corner kick its game last weekend against the U.S. They didn't play the ball in until the clock read 93:05, which means that really the game should've been over: the ball was out of play when the clock ran out. But the referee decided to let them play the ball in one more time. After he does so, how does he decide when to end the game? Does Ghana get one touch to score? Two touches? Until the ball leaves the penalty box? Until it goes out of bounds again? The point here is that no one knows when exactly the game is going to end. With the new extra time system described above, there will be an exact amount of extra time. My suggestion is that, once that time is reached, the game is over once the ball crosses over midfield, so that the attacking team has one last chance to put the ball in the goal, and there is a definitive answer to the question of when the referee should end the game.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Doesn't Anybody Care?
Update 7/3/10, 9:15 AM: Good news. They're doing something at least. FIFA is considering suspending Suarez for the final if Uruguay makes it. Not enough, as it doesn't help Ghana and if Uruguay doesn't make it, it won't matter at all, but at least it's something.
Unless you've spent the last few weeks in a coma, you're aware that the World Cup is into the Quarterfinals stage, with the first two matches having been played today. Netherlands shocked Brazil in the early game, and the crowd favorite, Ghana, was beaten by the favored Uruguay in the late one. While some Americans may have harbored a grudge against Ghana, I, along with many others, was pulling for the sentimental choice. Therefore, the manner in which the game was decided was, to put it gently, very frustrating for me.
In stoppage time of extra time, with the score tied at 1, Ghana had a golden opportunity to score. Their first shot from point-blank range was blocked by a quick-footed Uruguayan player, but Ghana controlled the rebound and immediately tried again. This time, that same player, Luis Suarez, intentionally lifted both his hands over his head and swatted the ball away, blocking what would have been the game-winning goal. Instead, Ghana was awarded a penalty kick, Suarez was given a red card, and the sure-footed Asamoah Gyan wound up missing, sending the game to a penalty kick shootout where Ghana would eventually lose.
Apparently, no else cares that someone blatantly cheated. No one else cares that this flagrant act prevented Ghana from surely advancing to the semifinals of the World Cup, which would have been the first time any African nation had ever accomplished that feat. Oh, people feel bad for Ghana, because they had a penalty kick to win the game with just minutes remaining. But no one thinks they should have gone through. They didn't make the penalty kick; that was their shot to get through, they say.
In fact, the announcers doing the highlights on ESPN seemingly pitied Suarez, pointing out how he was crying in the tunnel as Gyan lined up for the penalty kick. Shouldn't they be worried about Ghana's players, and how they, quite literally, outscored their opponent but somehow lost?
You say they didn't outscore them. I say they did. Unless the laws of physics suddenly chaned, that ball was, with 100% certainty, going to be a goal had Suarez not knocked it away with his hands. A penalty kick and red card simply do not compensate for that. Sure, players in the World Cup make penalty kicks at an 84% clip--that's pretty darn high, but it's not 100%.
It's not bad officiating, for once. The referee did all he could under the rules--he gave Suarez a red card, eliminating him from this match and the next, and gave Ghana a penalty kick. But how is that right? Shouldn't the referee be allowed to simply say the goal counts? In what other sport does this happen? If, in baseball, a catcher tackled a runner to prevent him from scoring and then held him there to allow another player to tag him, would the runner be sent back to third as if we didn't know what would have happened if the catcher hadn't cheated? In basketball, if a ball is going through the hoop and a player bats it away, does the offense get free throws? In football, if a defense commits a penalty, is the penalty enforced in lieu of the play even if the offense gets a preferable result from the play itself?
No, no, and no. In any other sport, if we know what would have happened anyways and it is a better result for the cheated-upon party, we do one of two things: we either ignore the infraction and give the preferred result, or we give the preferred result and the penalty. If a player goaltends in basketball, the preferred result of a basket is given. If a player commits unnecessary roughness in football, the play is allowed plus a 15-yard penalty. There is no situation, when we know for sure what would have happened, where only the penalty is awarded.
In soccer, this is how they do it. We know for sure the goal would have been scored. But instead, they make Ghana try again. You can't, therefore, blame Suarez from a logical point of view. Morally, you can, because he cheated. But logically, there is no disincentive to prevent him throwing his hand up there to stop the ball. He gets a red card and will have to miss the rest of this match and the next one. Well, if he lets the ball in, there won't be a next match and the rest of this one is inconsequential. Ghana gets a penalty kick. Well, that actually sounds like an incentive. Instead of the 100% chance of a goal being scored, Ghana's chances drop to 84%.
There needs to be a significant disincentive for this. Why not allow referees to award a goal when they are absolutely sure one would have been scored if not for a flagrant act of cheating such as this one? I know people will argue that more subjectivity from the referees will only exacerbate the officiating problems, but this would be a VERY rare occurrence, and would hopefully never actually need to be used because of the disincentive it provides. If you want to make it even stronger, why not, if the goal was sure to have been scored, count it AND allow a penalty kick? I guarantee you'll never see a player do what Suarez did ever again if that were the rule.
That will never happen though. And not even because people don't want to allow the referees to be more subjective. It won't happen because nobody even cares. Nobody is pointing out that, save a cheating hand, Ghana actually won the game and yet didn't advance. Everyone thinks justice was served with the penalty kick opportunity. Not even anyone on the Ghanaian side thinks they were shafted. How can it be that nobody cares?
Ghana scored 2 goals. Uruguay scored 1. And yet Uruguay has moved on to play the Netherlands in the World Cup semifinal. Something needs to be changed.
Unless you've spent the last few weeks in a coma, you're aware that the World Cup is into the Quarterfinals stage, with the first two matches having been played today. Netherlands shocked Brazil in the early game, and the crowd favorite, Ghana, was beaten by the favored Uruguay in the late one. While some Americans may have harbored a grudge against Ghana, I, along with many others, was pulling for the sentimental choice. Therefore, the manner in which the game was decided was, to put it gently, very frustrating for me.
In stoppage time of extra time, with the score tied at 1, Ghana had a golden opportunity to score. Their first shot from point-blank range was blocked by a quick-footed Uruguayan player, but Ghana controlled the rebound and immediately tried again. This time, that same player, Luis Suarez, intentionally lifted both his hands over his head and swatted the ball away, blocking what would have been the game-winning goal. Instead, Ghana was awarded a penalty kick, Suarez was given a red card, and the sure-footed Asamoah Gyan wound up missing, sending the game to a penalty kick shootout where Ghana would eventually lose.
Apparently, no else cares that someone blatantly cheated. No one else cares that this flagrant act prevented Ghana from surely advancing to the semifinals of the World Cup, which would have been the first time any African nation had ever accomplished that feat. Oh, people feel bad for Ghana, because they had a penalty kick to win the game with just minutes remaining. But no one thinks they should have gone through. They didn't make the penalty kick; that was their shot to get through, they say.
In fact, the announcers doing the highlights on ESPN seemingly pitied Suarez, pointing out how he was crying in the tunnel as Gyan lined up for the penalty kick. Shouldn't they be worried about Ghana's players, and how they, quite literally, outscored their opponent but somehow lost?
You say they didn't outscore them. I say they did. Unless the laws of physics suddenly chaned, that ball was, with 100% certainty, going to be a goal had Suarez not knocked it away with his hands. A penalty kick and red card simply do not compensate for that. Sure, players in the World Cup make penalty kicks at an 84% clip--that's pretty darn high, but it's not 100%.
It's not bad officiating, for once. The referee did all he could under the rules--he gave Suarez a red card, eliminating him from this match and the next, and gave Ghana a penalty kick. But how is that right? Shouldn't the referee be allowed to simply say the goal counts? In what other sport does this happen? If, in baseball, a catcher tackled a runner to prevent him from scoring and then held him there to allow another player to tag him, would the runner be sent back to third as if we didn't know what would have happened if the catcher hadn't cheated? In basketball, if a ball is going through the hoop and a player bats it away, does the offense get free throws? In football, if a defense commits a penalty, is the penalty enforced in lieu of the play even if the offense gets a preferable result from the play itself?
No, no, and no. In any other sport, if we know what would have happened anyways and it is a better result for the cheated-upon party, we do one of two things: we either ignore the infraction and give the preferred result, or we give the preferred result and the penalty. If a player goaltends in basketball, the preferred result of a basket is given. If a player commits unnecessary roughness in football, the play is allowed plus a 15-yard penalty. There is no situation, when we know for sure what would have happened, where only the penalty is awarded.
In soccer, this is how they do it. We know for sure the goal would have been scored. But instead, they make Ghana try again. You can't, therefore, blame Suarez from a logical point of view. Morally, you can, because he cheated. But logically, there is no disincentive to prevent him throwing his hand up there to stop the ball. He gets a red card and will have to miss the rest of this match and the next one. Well, if he lets the ball in, there won't be a next match and the rest of this one is inconsequential. Ghana gets a penalty kick. Well, that actually sounds like an incentive. Instead of the 100% chance of a goal being scored, Ghana's chances drop to 84%.
There needs to be a significant disincentive for this. Why not allow referees to award a goal when they are absolutely sure one would have been scored if not for a flagrant act of cheating such as this one? I know people will argue that more subjectivity from the referees will only exacerbate the officiating problems, but this would be a VERY rare occurrence, and would hopefully never actually need to be used because of the disincentive it provides. If you want to make it even stronger, why not, if the goal was sure to have been scored, count it AND allow a penalty kick? I guarantee you'll never see a player do what Suarez did ever again if that were the rule.
That will never happen though. And not even because people don't want to allow the referees to be more subjective. It won't happen because nobody even cares. Nobody is pointing out that, save a cheating hand, Ghana actually won the game and yet didn't advance. Everyone thinks justice was served with the penalty kick opportunity. Not even anyone on the Ghanaian side thinks they were shafted. How can it be that nobody cares?
Ghana scored 2 goals. Uruguay scored 1. And yet Uruguay has moved on to play the Netherlands in the World Cup semifinal. Something needs to be changed.
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