With the World Cup comes the quadrennial ritual in which Americans try to redesign and improve the rules of soccer. As usual, it’s a bad idea to redesign something you don’t understand---and indeed, most of the proposed changes would be harmful. What has surprised me, though, is how rarely anyone explains the rationale behind soccer’s rules. Once you understand the rationale, the rules will make a lot more sense.
So here’s the logic underlying soccer’s rules: the game is supposed to scale down, so that an ordinary youth or recreation-league game can be played under the exact same rules used by the pros. This means that the rules must be designed so that the game can be run by a single referee, without any special equipment such as a scoreboard.
Most of the popular American team sports don’t scale down in this way. American football, basketball, and hockey --- the most common inspirations for “reformed” soccer rules --- all require multiple referees and special equipment. To scale these sports down, you have to change the rules. For example, playground basketball has no shot clock, no counting of fouls, and nonstandard rules for awarding free throws and handling restarts---it’s fun but it’s not the same game the Lakers play. Baseball is the one popular American spectator sport that does scale down.
The scaling principle accounts for soccer’s seemingly odd timekeeping. The clock isn’t stopped and started, because we can’t assume a separate timekeeping official and we don’t want to burden the referee’s attention with a lot of clock management. The time is not displayed to the players, because we can’t assume the availability of a scoreboard. And because the players don’t know the exact remaining time, the referee gives the players some leeway to finish an attack even if the nominal finishing time has been reached. Most of the scalable sports lack a clock --- think of baseball and volleyball --- but soccer manages to reconcile a clock with scalability. Americans often want to “fix” this by switching to a scheme that requires a scoreboard and timekeeper.
The scaling principle also explains the system of yellow and red cards. A hockey-style penalty box system requires special timing and (realistically) a special referee to manage the penalty box and timer. Basketball-style foul handling allows penalties to mount up as more fouls are committed by the same player or team, which is good, but it requires elaborate bookkeeping to keep track of fouls committed by each player and team fouls per half. We don’t want to make the soccer referee keep such detailed records, so we simply ask him to record yellow and red cards, which are rare. He uses his judgment to decide when repeated fouls merit a yellow card. This may seem arbitrary in particular cases but it does seem fair on average. (There’s a longer essay that could be written applying the theory of efficient liability regimes to the design of sports penalties.)
It’s no accident, I think, that scalable sports such as soccer and baseball/softball are played by many Americans who typically watch non-scalable sports. There’s something satisfying about playing the same game that the pros play. So, my fellow Americans, if you’re going to fix soccer, please keep the game simple enough that the rest of us can still play it.
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How about just eliminating the "dive"? That would make it infinitely more watchable.
"Diving" without having been fouled is already banned, and is punishable by an automatic yellow card. Players do get penalized for this. If a player is actually fouled, and falls somewhat more theatrically than necessary, this does little harm.
My sense is that people who haven't played seriously tend to underestimate the force and intensity of the collisions on the field, and the amount of pain these collisions would inflict on a normal body. On television, player-on-player contact is typically shown either in a distant wide-angle view, or in slow motion. Both views tend to make the contact look less violent than it really is.
Those of us you hate diving aren't talking about the plays where players actually touch each other. We're talking about the unquestionably blatant dives. Are you telling me you actually think the Ivory Coast player was injured when HE ran into Kaka? what a joke. Or where De Rossi wasn't even touched and fell over in agony? Its disgusting.
Obviously a pure dive, where the player is not even touched, is indefensible. Unfortunately this is difficult for referees to enforce in practice. I wouldn't object to having a video review that imposes some post-game punishment on players who dive. This is still consistent with the scalability principle, because it does not change the rules or conduct of the game itself.
Watch the videos about De Rossi incident again, Cáceres steps on his heel. Although De Rossi does put some extra there when falling down, I can assure you that when someone steps on your heel with studded boots when running in full speed, it hurts.
That Kaita thing was totally different, and Fifa obviously should sanction him for that. Which probably will happen.
Please, get real. I played soccer for 8 years and I can assure you that the vast majority of those reactions are faked. How is it that 90-95% of a time that a player rolls around in agony, he is able to get back up and keep playing like nothing happened? Why is it that at least 50% of the time, the player grabs a body part other than the one that was actually touched? How is it that soccer players take 3x longer to get up off the ground than rugby or football players - and don't even start to tell me that rugby and football players aren't hitting each other as hard as soccer players are.
Diving is a part of soccer - a really, really stupid part. More referees and stricter enforcement would cut down on it.
I agree, diving is being abused and people are getting away with it because a single referee behind the players and the goal won't have the best view in almost all cases. It's not scaling up so does need some kind of change.
Diving seems to be professional blight and doesn't happen in non pro games IMHO because worse case you're probably going to get a yellow if someone falls down. Even then I think in most cases it would be ascribed to general un-coordination; There's much more leeway I think but then again most people are playing for the fun of it so get the benefit of the doubt.
Maybe there's a greater role for side line ref's, for red cards they can confer and for professional leagues, some kind of instant replay. Rugby league and union to some extent are both scalable games but the professional league makes much more heavy use of replays, touch judges etc with the number of ref's increasing as you go up. Touch judges can feed in what really happened and the controlling referee can use their judgement. Even school games for under 12 now play with three ref's as standard so seems like a scalable solution for soccer. If play's stopped I think a replay/challenge scenario makes sense and won't affect the feeling of the same game too much. Seems ok for tennis, rugby ...
Some of the timing scalability issues you've raised have already crept into soccer. For example I've never played injury time but this seems to be quite common for soccer now and requires someone monitoring time with a stop watch.
At last, someone that understands but is there hope for the rest of the US?
P.S. I hate to think of the suggestions that could be made if the US ever discovers cricket
Many people in the U.S. understand and follow the game; but they're not the ones writing about how to "fix" the rules.
ok fine, but you didn't explain why this "scaling down" is a desirable feature of a TV spectacle played by multi million dollar professionals.
My claim is that the spectacle is more engaging for the audience, because the audience plays the same game that the millionaires are playing. This has two main advantages: (1) the audience better understands what is happening on the field, and (2) some of the kids playing at small scale will be the next generation of professionals.
Neither of those arguments make any sense.
(1) the audience better understands...
Are you claiming that American fans don't understand the NFL, basketball, baseball or hockey? You need to provide some evidence for such an outlandish claim.
(2) kids playing at small scale will be the next generation...
Are you claiming that American kids playing a scaled down version of Basketball with only one ref and no shot clock don't ever go on to play in the NBA? I can't even understand what you are talking about here.
Even if the rules are primarily the same, the *presence* of referees, the professional-quality equipment and the high pressure of professional-level soccer makes it a world apart from the playground game.
But even so, wouldn't you agree that it's the athleticism and essential parts of the game that draw fans in? The thrill of watching someone nail a leaping header into the goal is exciting period, and that's the part that folks around the world can imagine themselves doing in a game. They don't care that the player didn't know how much time was on the clock when he did it.
Same goes for US professional sports like football and basketball. Even if you've never played with a shot clock or instant-replay refereeing, watching someone nail a tough three-pointer or catch a tough pass in the end zone is still relatable.
I'm an American who has learned to love soccer, including stoppage time and red cards, through the help of several international friends. However, there is one thing I will never learn to accept: diving. How the international community can sit back and watch people blatantly cheat is infuriating. From the Italian De Rossi to the Ivory Coast, teams cheat for the entire world to see, all the time, and get away with it. Diving can be easily wiped away with the use of simple risk vs reward economics. Simply review the video after the game and if anyone was found to dive (falling down without being touched, acting like they've been shot in the face when they haven't been touched, etc), suspend them for 20 international games. Problem solved.
Maybe you are not aware of it, but there is penalty for diving. The FIFA won't let the Ivory coast guy go away with it.
You may not be aware of this, but the referee's subjectivity is integral part of the game. It is even on the rule book: All decisions of the referee are final. It is not an objective outside observer enforcing the rules. The referee's interpretation of the rules are the rules, Louis XIV style.
I was watching a History Channel special on the world cup the other week. At the end they were discussing the role technology has in the game and how it has affected it. When in came to rule enforcement, though, the interviewees mentioned that FIFA is never going to add technological solutions to aid referee decisions. The errors that referees make all over the world spur a multimillion dollar industry: The Soccer Comment/Analysis Infotainment.
"You may not be aware of this, but the referee's subjectivity is integral part of the game"
This is why America will never accept it.
Di Rossi wasn't diving, though. He was being fouled and he went down to get the call. That is a world away from what Keita did, which was obviously cheating.
Think of a basketball player who pump fakes, gets his opponent in the air, and then jumps into him to draw a foul. That's a legitimate play, and no one would accuse that guy of "diving".
Don't jump in the air when someone pump fakes, or you get burned. Don't grab someone's shirt in the box, or you will get called for a penalty. Its pretty obvious.
First of all, I find sport boring to watch, so bear that in mind. However I think the most boring ever sporting fixture I went to was an American football match - constant stop-starting, seemed to go on forever, endless faffing about by officials - amazingly, even the commentators got confused as to when the match had ended. I finally understood that cheerleaders are an essential part of the game and not just eye candy; I just ended up watching them the entire time.
"Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings."
George Will
Attempting to change the rules does require an understanding of the game and its history - I'm not entirely convinced by this version of the 'rules scaling down' argument, though. The primary factor that makes soccer scale down is that it's possible to play a game substantially similar and as fun as what the professionals play with nothing more than a soccer ball. Most recreational soccer in the world, by far, is not played by the standard regulations. The kind of soccer played in parks, schoolyards and playgrounds across the world is not played
I don't dispute that most games aren't played that way. Most baseball games aren't played on regulation-sized diamonds/fields, with a proper pitcher's mound, with regulation-sized bases, with an ump, etc.
The real point is that doing *any* of these things is relatively trivial, setting up a game can be a 10-minute affair, you need a ball, and four garbage cans (maybe some unused jackets) for goal posts, and between 4-11 people per team. You can play it on concrete, grass, wooden floor (i.e. basketball/volleyball courts) and even sand (on the beach).
In other words, it's versatile and easily improvised. Basketball? You need a backboard and a basket, and make sure it's high enough so to not be too easy. American football? It's a really hard game to improvise, and when it is, it is usually so stripped-down that it hardly resembles the original game. For example, fouling in American football is insanely complicated, and only experts on the game know the entire array of specific fouls that can happen, and how do determine their respective penalties (which are subjective, by the way). Even baseball is somewhat complicated because of the "strike zone" but this can usually be approximated by its players without the need for an ump.
In short, I think the author is right on the money.
How is it any harder to set up an impromptu baseball diamond than a soccer pitch? Like you said, you need four garbage cans for the four bases; likewise in soccer, you need four garbage cans to mark the two goals. At that point you are ready to go.
You might want to set up some kind of boundaries, but in my pick up games we never bother. Throw ins just slow the game down anyway.
Doesn't the offsides rule contradict this thesis? It requires 2 additional line judges to track player position.
Offside is an interesting case. The offside rule is the same with or without line judges, but the rule is difficult for a lone referee to enforce accurately. This is a case where the rules are trying to improve the game play at the cost of some imprecision in enforcement. Line judges don't change the rules, only how well they are enforced.
Interestingly, the (British) announcers on American television for the opening World Cup game seemed not to know the offside rule. They seemed to think (wrongly) that the offside line is drawn at the first non-goalkeeper defender, rather than (correctly) at the second defender including the goalkeeper. They must have spent ten minutes puzzling over a certain offside call, even when the FIFA video feed showed a freeze-frame with the line drawn according to the correct rule.
Could you list out exactly which changes would violate this "scalability" rule? The only hockey-themed rule that I hear often is adding a second referee. How does that violate scalability any more than the side judges or fourth official do now?
The other rule is using video replay for various things, such as punishing players later or correcting bad card decisions (such as the red against Kaka). But you say:
"[Line judges don't] change the rules, only how well they are enforced."
You could just as easily say:
"[Video replay doesn't] change the rules, only how well they are enforced."
So what changes are going to make the soccer I watch on TV so radically different from the soccer I play in my park, exactly?
Here are two problematic rule changes that have been proposed. (1) Penalize fouls by sending off players for limited periods, as in hockey where players spend time in the penalty box. (2) Stop the clock whenever the ball is not in play, and display the remaining time so that everyone can see it.
Both changes would make timekeeping too complex for a single referee to manage (along with his other responsibilites). The second change also assumes a scoreboard or some kind of display technology.
People have proposed both of these changes to me in person, and I have seen them proposed in print as well.
I usually hate it myself when people nitpick on this, but can you guys please start calling the game by the name that 95% of the people actually playing it do as well? It's called football (or Fußball, fútbol etc.). Even the Aussies and Kiwis have cottoned on to the fact by now...
So here's my suggestion: Before you are trying to redesign a sport, at least learn what to call it first. Please....
The term is perfectly understandable by all English speakers and is unambiguous to American English speakers. Besides, it nearly as old as the game itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_football#Etymology
Not to mention the fact that there are plenty of languages which have words for soccer that are not derived from or sound anything like 'football'. So, yes, this particular avenue of nitpicking remains deeply silly.
I thought about what name to use for the game. I typically say "football" when talking to non-Americans. But my readers are mostly American, so I decided to use the American name for the game, rather than having to break the flow of the post by stopping to explain my terminology. "Soccer" is understood by everybody, even if some find it annoying.
Football covers loads of sports, Association Football, Rugby Football, American Football, Gaelic Football, Rules Football etc.
The first two, being English public school sports have associated slang names "Soccer" and "Rugger", which define which one you're actually talking about.
Any of them are called football when you only play or talk about one, but when talking to other people who aren't in the same monoculture, you can be more precise.
If you don't like the public school slang element, call it Association Football, which is its real name.
"Football" refers to any game you play on foot, with a ball. Association football, American football, rugby union, rugby league, Aussie rules, Gaelic football etc. can all be correctly called football.
You can't call an elliptical object, such as the rugby "ball", a ball. A ball rolls, a ball bounces, a ball swerves and therefore is easy to kick. In rugby,an subsequently American football, the object is more suited to holding than kicking.
Aussie Rules uses the same sort of shaped ball as rugby, and the primary means of getting the ball around is kicking. The ball still rolls. The ball still bounces - and the players specifically have to bounce the ball if they move while holding it. The ball still swerves - a master kicker can make it do some fantastic aerial feats.
Your definition of what makes a ball is rather odd.
Whoops, messed up the form fields. Why do comments need their own subject line anyway?
I beg to differ. The origin of the name "Football" in American Football is because the "ball" is one foot long. "0.3-meter-ball" doesn't quite roll off the tongue as easily.
Soccer fans and players should demand more transparency in FIFA officiating. For example, FIFA allows a referee to call a foul without stating the reason or player who committed it. This is what made the USA-Slovenia call so appalling. Referees in any sport will occasionally blow calls, but at least we don't have to speculate on what is the call. In the USA-Slovenia game, the referee may have just assumed (incorrectly) that on replay, some USA players would be spotted committing a foul, thereby justifying the bogus call.
The lack of transparency is also one objection to the antiquated FIFA time-keeping mechanism. Why can't the referee keep a stopwatch that counts down from 45 minutes, and stop it for injury time, bookings, goals, etc? When a scoreboard and appropriate technology are available (such as World Cup), display it for all to see; when they're not, reveal it to the coach or captain upon request. The latter is how it's typically done in many leagues already.
Not everyone can afford technology like a stopwatch. The sport must be able to scale down!!!
The thing which needs to change but does have to a club level is the ability for the referee in international and major football league to review a decision by video.
This doesn't need to scale down, it just used for televised sport.
Rugby Union, Rugby League, US football, Ice Hockey, Tennis and Cricket all have video reviews but Football/Soccer does not. None of the blatant dives or bad decisions would stand after a simple review.
I think like Union, the yellow card should be a sent off for 10 mins. Timekeeping 10 mins is not hard on any normal digital watch. That punishment would stop tthe fouls and cynical professional tripping that occurs now.
Everyone keeps talking about how US football and Hockey have video replay, but they way they do video replay would not affect any of the problems that people complain about in soccer.
Take the NFL for instance. They only allow replays for rules that are not subjective, such as "did this guy step out of bounds before he caught the ball." They do NOT overturn calls such as holding or pass interference.
The diving and missed penalty calls in soccer fall under the holding/pass interference spectrum, not the "did he hit the ground with his knee before losing contact with the ball" side.
The only thing they could really review is whether a ball crossed the goal line or not, or whether something should be a corner kick or a goal kick. Those things happen too infrequently (in the case of disputed goals) or are too unimportant (everything else) to bother slowing down the game for.
The only thing they could really review is whether a ball crossed the goal line or not, or whether something should be a corner kick or a goal kick. Those things happen too infrequently (in the case of disputed goals) or are too unimportant (everything else) to bother slowing down the game for.
I think England would beg to differ. This had to be one of the worst calls in World Cup history. A video replay of disputed goals would have quickly corrected this egregious mistake. That's why the NHL reviews disputed goals - it doesn't happen frequently, but when it does, it is critical to get the call right and help restore the integrity of the game.
I completely agree - IMHO, a retrospective video review would instantly "fix" soccer*.
A bad decision made at an amateur level upsetting but the impact is relatively small when compared with the financial/national repercussions for professional teams and countries. The current situation favors those who cheat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eZhBCqh8l8, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZs0wbG-CoI
There's no need to change the structure of the game played over the 90 minutes. If the Referee had the power to book players on review of the video evidence, the players would soon learn to stay on their feet and actually try to PLAY THE GAME!!!
Through fear of being banned from playing the next match - they might even admit that there was an "accidental hand ball"!
* I'm Irish so football means something completely different to us:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelic_football
I have played high school soccer four years, and the rule about sitting out 10 mins for a yellow card is followed. It makes the game A LOT rougher, because the refs don't like to pull yellow cards, so a foul just gets a free kick. There is no reason not to foul multiple times, unlike without the rule, when the ref will card you on the second or third foul.
In the US, there are a variety of different organizations with their own set of rules: NFHS for high school, NCAA for colleges, FIFA for professionals, and house rules for pickup games. For example, the NCCA mandates using a timekeeper with a clock that stops.
http://www.nfhs.org/Workarea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=3381
I think sports such as soccer and basketball are so popular because you can play 3-on-3 basketball or 7v.7 soccer and it "feels like" the real game, even if the rules are drastically different (e.g., half-court, no goalie, no officials). Playing baseball with 7 per side is not much fun. American football requires too much equipment. I think this better explains why so many Americans play basketball and soccer: not much equipment required and the sports are robust with respect to the rules.
People don't play baseball because the game really isn't that fun unless everyone is really good at it. Either the pitcher is so good that no one can hit, or the pitcher can't throw strikes.
Softball fixes that problem, which is why there are softball games going on all over the US every night.
People don't play football because it hurts too much.
People who complain about others calling football, soccer need to get a life.
The Americans didn't invent the term, the English did, just as it was the English who laid down the rules of the game. In England both terms are wide usage.
I have been attending matches, watching on tv and playing football/soccer/footie all my life and I never once heard a football player/fan object to the word soccer. Not even when I lived for many years in the game's true heartland, Lancashire.
No more ties, that's what really hurts the sport. American like for their to be a decisive outcome. PKs also seem like kind of a cop out. Stamina is important, so play until someone scores.
I'm ok with ties in the preliminary round (just like ties in hockey and American football are possible in the regular season, if less common). But when it comes to the knockout stage, let them play until they drop (like they do in the NHL playoffs). Does anyone want to defend using PKs to decide World Cup games?
What other sports so drastically change the rules (in the elimination/playoff stage) to terminate the game? College football comes to mind.
Wimbledon has it right - John Isner and Nicolas Mahut are tied at 59-59 in the fifth set, and will resume their epic battle tomorrow morning. Unbelievable!
One simple way to make soccer/football more exciting, or at least give some more incentives to the teams to attack, is to simply not give points for 0-0 draws. The 0-0 draw is the biggest problem in soccer/football in my mind. This scales well as it's a simple rule for leagues. I put together a simple site to gain some traction for the idea. http://nilnilnopoints.info. Cheers!