It is almost exclusively an Italian cultural problem: no where is the amount of gamesmanship as prevalent as in Italy.
I've thought for a long time that the simple fix would be.. if the game is stopped for an injury that player either needs to come off for 10 mins or be subbed out.
No because that's unfair for genuine injuries which is not the issue. A player can go down with a genuine knock that he needs a little bit of time to shake off. Not a problem, stop the clock until he is able to resume playing, assuming he is able to resume playing in a timely manner. If not, he should be taken off for treatment or subbed off. Forcing that player out for 10 mins or to be subbed out would be grossly unfair in that case. You'll know the issue is genuine because what's the point in faking it if the clocked is stopped. You're not achieving anything, unless you're faking it for a quick breather, but so what in that case. The issue is faking injuries to waste time which is rife. The issue is not only the wasting of time itself but also the disruption of the games flow which leads to (at times intense) frustration for the players and fans of the team that is trailing in the match. It's grossly unfair and can be solved, as far as I can see, with the most simple of fixes. In rugby injury-time doesn't exist because when there's a stoppage in play the clock is stopped (not all cases but vast majority). Simple as that. When time is up the match ends the next time the ball goes out of play. I'd love to hear an argument against this in case I'm missing something here.
Why I'm not a fan of just stopping the clock is two-fold. 1) There is no real penalty for a team that's winning to keep faking injuries to break up the flow of play and 2) I love the fact that soccer is a set amount of time give or take 5 mins. As far as real injuries my perspective is probably a lot different. I grew up playing hockey (and soccer) which is much more physically demanding. There are very few times when I wasn't able to pick myself up and get to the bench. I guess the way I see it is if you are really hurt you'll need to get subbed, if not pick yourself up like a man and carry on. I can't think of any injury that 1-2 mins will fix (outside of the 'boys' getting hit)
From my own experience: almost every hit to the knee, a twisted ankle (if you're lucky and didn't tear a ligament), a charley horse (hope I used the correct term here). The example you thought of isn't that rare either. The point is that what you're suggesting will lead to an advantage for the team that commited the foul in many cases, even if the player gets up immediately. You also can't compare it to hockey where you have unlimited substitutions.
There's no penalty but there's an advantage is the point. The advantage of wasting time and breaking the flow of play. Stopping the clock removes one of those advantages and therefore the incentive to do it is not there, or at least significantly reduced. If a winning team is faking injuries to break the flow of play, that's different, there's nothing you can do about it but at least they wont be killing time too. A football match is supposed to be 90 mins of playing time. It never is because the clock isnt stopped and during a match, any match, chunks of time is wasted for a multitude of reasons. I wouldn't expect anybody to be arsed doing it, but get your stopwatch out next time you watch a game and my point will proven right everytime, I can guarantee it.
I remember an article I read in the past 2-3 years regarding this topic. I want to say the average half had 30-35 minutes of the ball actually in play. I can't remember where I read it (may have been fivethirtyeight.com) so i could be way off in my recollection
People from 3 galaxies away were able to see that he's not a CL level sporting director, except a few special cases I guess. Unless we get extremely lucky - we aren't getting out of this hole for at least 2-3 seasons. We went from world-class GK, stable defence and world-class midfield to GK, defense and midfield that acts as a well-oiled accordion even in the hands of the Frozinones of this world. The only teams that weren't able to fold us like a cigarette paper were the unlucky ones. Truly pathetic. I just wish that the Moronchi lovers could have had the decency to follow their demigod to Sevilla too. Now that would've been a Roma mid-season over-haul worthy of a toast or three.
I am no Monchi lover but let's be fair he did improve our MF. The previous couple of seasons our MF was pretty poor. Zaniolo, Pellegrini and Cristante have all played well and are still extremely young. I'm not sure why Nzonzi gets so much grief here but he's been pretty good for us, IMO. I criticized the sale of Radja as much as anyone but considering how Zaniolo has performed Monchi actually committed robbery there. I do agree though, what he did at GK, CB, ST and wingers was really poor overall.
He improved the potential our MF may have in the future but it's way too early to say he improved it. If DDR doesn't play we can hardly string together 3 passes.
Improved our midfield? I would say our midfield is as dysfunctional as our defense if not, arguably, even more dysfunctional. As @Midfield General said, he signed numerous youngsters, all of which are far from the finished article yet. We hope they can become players of genuine and consistent quality for Roma sooner rather than later, but it remains to be seen. And yes, I would include Zaniolo in that regard too.
Our MF the last year was miserable and had zero creativity. While we could put together passes it was always side-to-side or backwards. So yes we possessed the ball but there was no intent behind our passes.. we were just keeping the ball. IMO, up until the last month or so our MF was pretty damn good. I do agree it's been bad lately but for most of the season they were the only reason we won any games. Like I said I'm not a fan, on the whole I think he did a bad job, but I do think the MF is much more balanced now than in the past.
The thing is - it's not about balance and potential, it's about experience, output and dominance or intimidation, call it as you will, but there's a very great sense of foreboding playing vs DDR - Strootman - Naingollan, or DDR - Strootman - Pjanic / DDR - Pjanic - Naingollan that you are miles away from when you play against our newly minted midfield stars. Teams playing vs our last year's midfield had not only to outplay them, but to outlast them in terms of raw output and savage-ness. There's nothing savage in the current lot - you take the ball from them for 5 minutes and they'll simply let you walk over them for the rest of the match. We've lost 20 different positives and gained almost nothing in return for this and at least 3-4 seasons to come. And it's not a problem you could fix in a summer - midfields are much easier to dismantle than to build, as proven by the bald Spanish f*ck. In my opinion people are vastly under-estimating how lucky we were with Sabatini's decisions regarding our midfield. Luck or skills, but he did bring some of the best game/team influencers for our midfield and we just let them go for peanuts. Leadership isn't being the best at something, or the best in the team with a certain skills, it's knowing where the team should go when no one else does, and both Strootman and Naingollan were excellent leaders. We were leaning so much on them after Totti retired. Between losing Totti and those two, we really did messed up the foundations of a well-functioning team.
Well, we didn’t let them go for peanuts. If Zaniolo is sold for his rumored price we gained around 90 million for Radja
I'm gonna show you some magic now - it's called mathematics. 50-80mil. of said very hypothetical 90mil. we'd be losing by not entering CL this season and we'd probably repeat the exercise a few more seasons after that. We'd also be losing 10-20mil. per year from lower Seria A standings. We'd also be losing money on Nzonzi / Pastore buy/sell prices. The likes of Cristante and Zaniolo aren't sure good sales until they happen either. The Cost of Opportunity in life works both ways. So unless that green emoji has the universal meaning of "I don't know a thing about mats and now we all know that", you should've probably skipped using it, as well as you should've skipped writing a reply, lest you look like the fool we've repeatedly proven to be during the course of this season. We can petition the admins for a clown emoji instead, enabling you to represent yourself more truly in future posts. We'll call it "The Moronchi package" - free clown emoji and mat textbook for any old and new Moronchi forum member. EDIT: I swear, even my coffee tastes sweeter this morning...
We didn’t spend the money well, that doesn’t make potential 90 million for Radja cheap. Also you should seek help