Deconstructing soccer.

Soccer is not like other sports. Yeah, I know, you've heard that before from soccer-snobs that will pounce on you for using terms like "offsides" or "handball" or "goalie". No, I mean it's fundamentally different in a way that makes officiating problematic and unsatisfying, or to use FIFA's preferred term, dramatic.

All action sports have rules governing permissible interactions between players and all attempt to enforce them with penalties in such a way that there is an incentive not to breach them, but not so harsh as to capriciously damage the guilty team's chances or to tempt officials to turn a blind eye. Basketball has the foul shot, American football has downs and yardage, and hockey has the penalty box. But soccer, played continuously and producing very few goals has never hit upon a solution that would, throughout the course of the game, deter fouls while allowing the players to perform at the bleeding edge of exertion. Then again, it hasn't tried too hard.

Right about now, some soccer-snob that couldn't stomach a third paragraph of my babbling is probably typing a reply that soccer doesn't have rules, it has "laws". And that pompous Mosaic conceit is a symptom of the problem. Soccer has codified the rules of a schoolboy sport. There was no attempt to penalize at all. Offenses are divided into fouls – the acceptable mistakes of play, and misconducts - unacceptable violations of the game. The remedy for fouls is strictly restorative. The offended side gets to kick the ball free of opposition for ten yards. And this is to occur immediately. The idea being to reset the game as it would have been had the foul not occurred. Misconduct is dealt with simply by removing the rebellious player. Back in the day when the best 11 went up against the other best 11 in a marathon, there was no provision made for injury, exhaustion, or, in this case, refusal to abide by the rules. It was not intended to increase the other side's chances, but simply to get rid of the problem.

Good for schoolchildren. A disaster for paid celebrities. You don't have to be smart, just sly to realize that deliberately fouling brings all sorts of advantages. First off, it gives an opportunity to regroup.

The USSF instructions are full of silly harangues about the importance of allowing the attackers a quick restart and getting 10 yards clear. In reality, defenders will never allow a quick shot. The referee cannot provide this, because any intervention creates a ceremonial restart, nor would they want to, because the advantage to the offense would unbalance the game and make foul calls in the attacking third too critical. Instead, they "manage" the wall (which according to FIFA is not part of the game, but then again according to FIFA "fair play" is...) and arrange a ceremonial restart if the offense doesn't "want" (i.e. immediately take) a quick kick - which is a pass not a shot. In other words they act officious and congratulate themselves for setting the wall 10 yards away when they don't really have much control of anything.

But this is a minor distortion compared to the use of deliberate fouls to protect the goal. Soccer had to introduce a genuine penalty in the form of, well, the penalty kick. While this is certainly a disincentive to fouling in the penalty area, it is so critically harsh to the score it threatens to ruin the game. Any good ref knows the difference between a foul and a PK-worthy foul, whatever claims to the contrary. The first incident is usually kept in the pocket, "setting the bar", to be evidence of mercy if a second incident is called, or offsetting if it happens at the other end. All sorts of other unwritten conventions are expected, in an attempt to match crime with punishment using a crude tool.

But it doesn't end there. Outside the penalty area cautions are expected for persistent fouling and professional fouls, and send offs for DOGSO. And this is not enough because a send off in the final minutes or a caution a game has no teeth. So RCs and accumulated YCs cause administrative suspensions. Referees are taught to try to keep the players on the field, that cards are merely tools to manage the game, and it is entirely up to them to thrown as few or as many as they see fit.
Meanwhile the fans see cards as penalty handicaps, and decry the "inconsistency" from match to match.

Consider the NED-BRA game where Bastos under a PI caution committed another foul. Some question the foul; others complain the CR, having whistled, should have sent him off. Any ref hearing this hears much too much doubt to issue a second YC, but the fan is looking for a consistent application of "rules". This fundamental contradiction colors every conversation. Should DOGSO be applied mechanically like offside? Or is it reserved for cynical behavior? Is Suarez's handball embarrassingly shabby or brilliantly inspired? Does Henry's handling differ in some ethical way?

I come from youth soccer where cards are few and far between. It is certainly great recreation. But the real naivety is built into the rules and slavishly maintained by IFAB. FIFA claims the drama is good for the game. Well, at least for their coffers. There has been so much "drama" in this WC that it all becomes farce. What goal has been more memorable than Suarez's calculations? It is a sport like no other, but perhaps that's just because adults should not be paid to play a child's game.

 

Uh, I did. Or are you asking something else?

(I dropped it from a Word Pad expecting it to format normally.)

 

More that it doesn't. And it might be very difficult to come up with good solutions, but nobody is trying very hard...

 

Because they've lost the ball...

 

Me too!

 

I did say the nature of soccer play make conventional solutions problematic. That doesn't mean we can ignore the problems we already have.

The most characteristic aspect of basketball rules is and one - making most fouls both restorative and penal. Plus you have accumlated team fouls per quarter and (in the NBA) in the last two minutes, fouling out, flagrant fouls, and goal tending rules. A whole schema of rules designed to find a balance at all times in the game between careful play and vigorous contest. Sure, up by one at the very final second, a defender will grab an attacker to avoid a dunk, and it is accepted even if the teams blows the foul shots and last possession. But that's because it flows organically and esthetically from the whole course of the game and happens all the time. Soccer is not played with the hands for 89 minutes.

One can sympathize with Suarez faced with a choice between rules that offer a legal way to win versus a much advertised concept, "fair play", that is molested across the field from the opening whistle. But this is about the fans and FIFA. We have had unpleasant teams and unpleasant personalities win the World Cup but always elite. By odd circumstance one of the US, Ghana, Japan, or Uruguay was going to make the semifinals. So gritty, tiny Uruguay lays claim to its past glories with hard work and discipline. And one of the shabbiest displays in soccer memory. Ewww, a grasping small fry to be booted from the semis.

The fans want to think they are watching basketball, and want to distinguish the reprehesible "endangering the safty" from the mechanical. They want persistant infringment YC's to play the same role as fouling out in basketball. But referees are taught to "manage" the players and use PI when a player is "out of control". Thus we end up with bizarre analysis that find Henry despicable but Suarez burning with "passion" to win. Well it's all faux-passion and it all arises from the innate contradictions of the game. Some of us would prefer to watch the physical ballet of two teams trying to kick the ball into the net better than the other guys...