Efficiency of the Offense

When I played in college ( with a goat's head), corners was the first tiebreaker..

Didn't much like it, though. You spent the last part of the game just trying to hit the ball off defenders .

I think corners would be better than kicks from the mark, but there would be a premium on tall players who could score off that particular situation. I like free kicks better because one can score multiple ways: direct by a great shot, indirect by a tall player finishing, or more indirect by controlling play and creating an opportunity.

SoreKnees wrote:I think corners would be better than kicks from the mark, but there would be a premium on tall players who could score off that particular situation. I like free kicks better because one can score multiple ways: direct by a great shot, indirect by a tall player finishing, or more indirect by controlling play and creating an opportunity.

I meant that teams who had the most corners during the game got the win, not that there was a corner kick contest after the game....

Purplegeezer wrote:When I played in college .

There was soccer back then???

Another idea for tie breakers is playing maybe 3-5 minutes with ten players, then another 3-5 with 9 players, and so on until someone scores. I coached a few tie breakers indoors with this method - lots of fun. The game REALLY opened up as the numbers got fewer. We once got down to one player plus the keeper - we scored. REALLY fun.

dave97239 wrote:
Since the NCAA has already made mods to the FIFA rules, why not a few more to encourage offensive flair... as long as we are on the topic, how about no off sides once the ball is inside the box?

Call me crazy, but, I don't think the purists are going to go for that one... I don't think it's necessary either as long as there are 9-0 results in any round of the tourney.

Well, even though PK's are heartbreaking (as evidenced just a few weeks ago), I think it is the best way to break the tie. In a sense, it pits the very essence of the game, kicking the ball, against the other basic element, one player able to use their hands. The setup favors the kicker in that a well placed kick is impossible to stop. They had a great little video of the science of the PK during the World Cup if you saw it. Impossible to stop with speed, distance and reaction time. But, as we know the kicker often flubs it and that is what makes it interesting.
I don't like the other suggestions (counting corners, or shots, or free kicks given) although the old NASL "dribble in from 35 yards out" form of tiebreaker added the other element of dribbling. Those were kind of fun and of more interest. Would love to see that with some of the world's top strikers. I also like the often suggested "take off a player every few minutes" although that can be a brutal ending for the conditioning. It would get the result needed.
In the end, it will be much better if the Pilots just score the goals during regulation play.

"I also like the often suggested "take off a player every few minutes" although that can be a brutal ending for the conditioning. It would get the result needed."

The purists aren't going to go for these ideas, and they aren't going to happen, but it's fun anyway, to dream up the best solution. My version of the "Make it easier to score, while retaining the fundamentals of the game" idea would be, in the second and subsequent overtimes, to play 11 on 11 with no hands, i.e. no GK with special privileges.

I think that movement and teamwork are of essence of the game, much more so than PKs, and almost any tie-breaker would be better than PK shoot-outs. Well, no, counting shots would not be better, and would just encourage the players to take ridiculous shots throughout the game.

A more conservative corrective would be to just move the PK spot out, to where making your PK is more like 50-50 odds. That might also have the benign effect of encouraging refs to call more of the fouls they see in the box. Inside the box they seem to set a much higher bar for what's a foul, since they hate to be seen as giving the game away with one little call. You ever notice how many more fouls they call right outside the box?

I like all those ideas, but you're right about it not happening. I especially like the 11 v 11 with no hands. How about having 2 degrees of penalty within the penalty box, one for a normal penalty which might be taken around the 18, another for the type that only gets called now, in which the fouled player was egregiously fouled in a truly dangerous scoring position? That would be taken from the current line.

You and I should be co-kings of international soccer, dwm. We'd get things humming along in no time.

fan from afar wrote:
I like all those ideas, but you're right about it not happening. I especially like the 11 v 11 with no hands. How about having 2 degrees of penalty within the penalty box, one for a normal penalty which might be taken around the 18, another for the type that only gets called now, in which the fouled player was egregiously fouled in a truly dangerous scoring position? That would be taken from the current line.

You and I should be co-kings of international soccer, dwm. We'd get things humming along in no time.

I'm kind of a purist, and I'm not so sure that's necessary. I'd prefer that refs take a tougher stance toward flopping and diving at every level of the game. Yes, it's a high speed physical game, and it's difficult to see everything going on, however, there are still too many players who dramatize fouls in the box and immediately look at the ref after fouls in the box. Unfortunately, in every sport some of the best players will take advantage of the rules. Jordan admitted that one of his "best moves" involved travelling. I prefer to see a cleaner, low scoring game with a lot of good technical skill and quality passing. I think our team provided that this year.

Spain in the World Cup is another pretty good example of how an effective technical team does not necessarily have to score a lot...

I'm not a purist, having played other sports with different silly rules most of my life.
I'd love to see either the "no hands" or "reducing players" end game. What I really like about the ideas is that the game would end in a goal, not a contrivance. Can you imagine a basketball game being decided by FTs? Yuck.

</dreaming>

gxm wrote:I'm not a purist, having played other sports with different silly rules most of my life.
I'd love to see either the "no hands" or "reducing players" end game. What I really like about the ideas is that the game would end in a goal, not a contrivance. Can you imagine a basketball game being decided by FTs? Yuck.

</dreaming>

Seriously? Many basketball games are decided by free throws at the college and the professional level... I don't consider PKs or free throws a "contrivance;" they're fundamentals of the game... At the highest level, players can convert about 77% of their PKs.

onetouchfutbol wrote:

gxm wrote:I'm not a purist, having played other sports with different silly rules most of my life.
I'd love to see either the "no hands" or "reducing players" end game. What I really like about the ideas is that the game would end in a goal, not a contrivance. Can you imagine a basketball game being decided by FTs? Yuck.

</dreaming>

Seriously? Many basketball games are decided by free throws at the college and the professional level...

Um, they aren't decided by having players from both teams parade to the FT line if the game is tied after an overtime period. They keep playing.

Hahaha, well they do keep playing, after managing to pass in and foul the player thus stretching the final 2 minutes of games into closer to 5-10 minutes...

Yeah, basketball sucks. Those finales are just as bad as PK shootouts—and the game up until that point is totally chopped up by foul calls as well.

The purpose of calling fouls is to see that rules are adhered to. Intentional "good fouls" happen occasionally in soccer, but they are totally routine and expected in any close basketball game. That tells us that it's time to increase the penalties (and/or relax the foul rules) until fouls are called at least as rarely as they are in soccer. Maybe let them foul out at three?

I thought the purpose of calling fouls was to ensure the team with the biggest television market wins...