Hello there, referees, How do you think your job, and for that matter the sport of football/soccer, would be affected if, when a shot clangs off the woodwork and goes over the endline [but not in the goal!]... ...the restart would be a corner kick to reward the team that ACHIEVED this near-miss? My hunch is that good things would follow this change in the LOTG. What do you think? For starters, you refs would have to determine if the errant shot grazed the pipes or not. See you at the park, Ze Bill
When I played I was a defender so I don't agree that "good things" would happen. Why punish me when I had defended so well that the attacker did not have a clear shot at goal? Why not make a goal worth three points and award a single point if the ball strikes the woodwork? Why reward a player who wasn't skilled enough to score on that play?
I've heard this suggestion before, and as a referee I wouldn't mind calling it. You are basically saying that the goal posts are "defenders", and a ball hitting a defender going over the endline is a corner kick. Seems to me you would also have to say that a ball hitting the goalpost and going over the touchline would have to be a throw-in for the attackers as well.
What if it hits me? Then a corner? If it goes in, then it's a goal. Can't agree with this for some reason.
Still a corner . I wouldn't have a major problem with it, but it goes against every other sport that utilized goal posts as far as I know.
if you could convince me of a way that this rule would be a) easy to call and b) make the game better, then i wouldnt have a problem with it. right now, it seems there is no reason for the rule. but, i would like to be proven wrong.
It is rewarded now, just that the reward is to the defense, they made the player miss the net. It would be no harder than calling a slight deflection now, off player or frame, we already have to make that call off a player.
I don't think it's a problem per say as much as it is a way to increase offensive chances in a notoriously low scoring game by certain standards.
Kind of a cool idea. We all know FIFA/IAFB wouldn't ever consider it, but it as a bit of a feel of the shot clock in basketball - if you don't hit the rim within the clock, the other team gets possession. That also was a way to increase scoring in basketball - gives each team more offensive possessions. Just another crazy thought... what about a 2-point line? Mark a semi-circle 22 yards from the goal and if you score from beyond that line - it counts as 2! Deflections off defenders don't count - still 2 if shot was from beyond the arc.
One thing that would make it harder to tell if a ball has grazed the post or the crossbar is the typical portable goal which as you know has a pipe extending back from each upper corner --- so you can anticipate the animated appeals for a corner after a shot has missed by two feet. [which even I wouldn't go for] DadOf6 and DerbyRam54 , my hunch is that, if a league on any level somewhere tried this concept out for a while, the shooters would have in their mind the notion that *2* good things could happen when they shoot, and that this positive mentality would result in more goals going in first-time. Yes, you can tell that I'm caught between a desire to keep the traditions of the game...avoid making the actual goals larger, and a desire NOT to DEPRIVE soccer fans of dramatic aspects, like lead changes. I did enjoy the 0 - 0 match between Sweden and Trinidad and Tobago at World Cup '06, I enjoyed the 4-3 victory of University of New Mexico over Seattle Pacific [early '90's] even more. also, how about this aspect: not too many goalies were 6'6'' back when the dimensions of the goal were set?
Well, if the goalpost and crossbar are defenders, then a ball that bounces off the goalpost and into the goal becomes an own goal, not a goal for the the attacker. Today we marvel at the skill of a player who can beat the keeper in such a fashion. Why would we penalize the player by not crediting him/her with the goal? Consider this: the second touch infraction on a restart is ingrained in the LOTG. Under this new interpretation, PK that bounces off the crossbar, back to the kicker and is played into the goal becomes a valid goal rather than a second touch IFK out. A corner kick that bounces off the goalpost and back to the kicker, who plays it again remains live. Why would we want to make these changes? I'm sure there are other implications that we could come up with, for example, should this thinking be extended to the corner flags? to the referee? All of this must be considered as part of this discussion if you ask me.
They don't have to. All you have to do is change the wording of Law 17, the corner kick, from "having last touched a player of the defending team" to "having last touched a player of the defending team or the goalposts or the crossbar" Only the awarding of a corner kick would be changed in this case.
this comes up once in a while, but what I don't get is this. IF and its a big IF, we change this, then aren't we rewarding the offense for failing to get a shot on net? Should "reward" be for accomplishing something you tried to do? In this case he tried to get the ball into the net, he failed. While the defense, who is trying to either steal the ball or put enough pressure on so the offense misses the net, well they succeeded? Are we going to say to the d: "nice work, but you didn't stop them enough so we are giving them the ball back, by the way, the ball is about to end up right infront of your net, keep trying"
I agree with this. I disagree with the original post. We are NOT penalizing for NOT scoring a goal, even if the shot comes close enough to hit the post or crossbar. "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades"
All we have to do to satisfy the desires of the original post is to undo some of the changes that have occurred to the LOTG over the years. He's just tinkering around the edges, let's get right back to basics. First, get rid of the crossbar altogether and award a goal "when the ball passes over the space between the goal posts (at whatever height)" - original law 4. Next, award possession of a ball in touch to the first player who touches it. I think that would add a lot of excitement to the game and remove a source of timewasting. Finally, you could eliminate the position of goalkeeper altogether, though whether you would add the possibility for any player to handle the ball is up for grabs, so to speak. At least that would stop the incessant yelling of "handball". While we're at it, you may as well make holding legal as well since there's a lot of it going on. I would draw the line at allowing hacking back in to the game though. See, law changes that make the game more exciting and can't annoy the purists either since all we're doing is going back to 1863.