Reduce the width of the Penalty area. Shrink the PA width to match the width of the Goal Area (20 yrds wide) but keep the 18 yards depth from goal line. I never understood why a foul/penalty given on the far wide and deep near the goal line within the 44 yards wide PA gives attackers a free penalty kick from 12 yrds away and directly in front of goal? Spectators love watching kicks from the mark for tie breaking tournaments. We are not so enamored with penalty kicks awarded based on a PK being awarded to attackers fouled in a large PK area where an attacking goal scoring opportunity is not likely. Under current ifab rules the PA is some 16% of entire field. Too large. My suggestion shrinks the PA to some half of that. Until I watched this years Euros and Womens Olympics I was a proponent of increasing the distance for a PK. However, like pro basketball and free throws, soccer PK goal scoring success seems to becoming the exception rather than the norm.
I'd like to see the statistics but it does seem like the goalkeepers have figured out something because it feels a lot closer to two out of three instead of four out of five.
i went to a Boca Juniors match some years ago and there was no clock in la Bombonera. Everyone still seemed to know how much time was left. (they have since gone 21st century and installed a couple screens)
Number one rule change needed. Make the goal larger. One foot wider and 6 inches higher. Reason: Create more scoring. As the only soccer fan in my circle of friends, I take a lot of flak. The sarcastic comments I hear most often are "nothing ever happens" and "Team A has an insurmountable 1-0 lead over Team B. Ha, ha!" American football, basketball, and baseball have all made rule changes to encourage more scoring. The simplest solution in soccer is to make the goal larger. With a bigger goal, you also have to move the penalty spot back a couple of additional yards. College soccer in the U.S. doesn't follow FIFA rules. Why not try a bigger goal there -- with the objective of getting more fannies in the seats at soccer games.
My comeback to that has always been "do you feel the same way about a 7-0 (or 3-0) score in football? That's a "defensive ballgame". What about a 1-0 "pitchers dual" in baseball?
I'm not a fan of basketball. Too easy to score by comparison. If the score is 1-0 late and the ball is inside the penalty area, that's exciting.
Low scoring games can be interesting - but if you look at what the commentators on soccer and other sports say it's usually the high scoring games they describe as "exciting." The best baseball game ever was 10-9 in which Pittsburg defeated the Yankees in the 1960 World Series finale. Best NWSL soccer game I've seen 3-3, New York Flash beat Portland in shoot out in 2016 playoff game. Basketball has a ridiculous amount of scoring.
As I wrote before, my suggestions to increase the goal average are to reduce the penalty area and requiring teams to have at least 3 players on each side of the field.
I remember among all the "no one cares about soccer in this country" piffle in the lead-up to the 1994 World Cup, one columnist made the following two points: 1. It's too low-scoring. 2. There aren't any "big plays." Um ... if there aren't many goals, then wouldn't each goal be a "big play"? I'm inconsistent in my fandom for higher-scoring games. I'm not a fan of lacrosse, and I struggle to get into rugby. But I love basketball and handball. I never minded indoor soccer, either.
After today's Premier League moment, I wouldn't be opposed to DOG-H resulting in a penalty goal + yellow. For every Suarez, there's going to be dozens of ones where an arm stopped a goal and it should be a PK but the red feels harsh. I don't think this one reached the level of where the red felt harsh, but it also wasn't Suarez. But it would also make your PK+SPA vs Goal decisions massive because in most cases where there is any doubt, the game generally expects the PK+yellow. The Villa v Newcastle PK from last week comes to mind.
I thought the Chelsea red was harsh. There was so much action going on there and James had pretty much zero time to react especially with the ball coming off his thigh.
Since we're just making up ideas that won't go anywhere... 1. Now that metric units are authoritative, let's adjust dimensions to make metric measurements whole. Make the PA and GA a little smaller, Penalty mark a little closer... Goal Area: 5 m Penalty Mark: 10 m Penalty Area: 15 m Center Circle: 10 m Corner Arc: 1 m Free Kick Distance: 10 m 2. If you want to make the goal a little bigger at the same time: Goal: 7.5 m x 2.5 m More problematic because of all the new goals you need to buy... 3. Make goal kicks and corner kicks have to leave their area to be in play. Cuts down on the confusion (or gamesmanship) of when the ball is in play versus adjusting the position of the ball. 4. You only get one chance at a penalty kick, like KFTM. Restart is either a Kick-Off or a Goal Kick. I hate seeing a keeper make a great save and then the kicker taps the rebound in. Also gets rid of all the encroachment issues that can cause problems when you call or don't call them. 5. Get rid of IFK. Make all free kicks direct. Don't have to tell if a kick barely touches someone or not. Can't forget to raise your arm. Infractions in the PA like double touch still aren't penalty kicks, they are free kicks from the spot of the infraction, just like now. It's just that the kick is direct rather than indirect.
1. Metric Good. (if it ever became a thing we could argue of the exact sizes.) 2. Metric still good: I think the easy answer is to allow either 8 foot/yard goals or 7.5/2.5m goals with the guidance that new goals be metric. I mean, we're talking about a 2.5cm difference (how many non-competition goals are that accurate anyway?) and 2cm width difference. 3. Not liking this one. I don't see this as much of an issue other than at the youth level. 4. No problem with this concept. It's much like a technical foul in basketball. (I do have a ideas on changing where a PK is taken from, but that's a different story). 5. Maybe....they really only occur in a meaningful way at the youth level anyway and there you often have one kid who can blast shots right in the goal giving him a little bigger advantage now.
Recently I've thought about "short" corners like your idea, from the intersection of the goal line and penalty area, whenever the last touch from a defending team is from within its penalty area. However, since I don't like the idea of some players getting very proficient at bending the ball into goal from a distance so much shorter than the normal corner kick, I'd make it an indirect free kick. *** some people have brought up the "ABBA" order for taking PKs in a shootout and I heartily agree. It's far more fair and tennis has been using it for, what, 40 years now? *** The offside rule probably needs a few changes; one simple change may not have much consequence but still should be considered: changing the determination of the offside line from the second-to-the-last defender to simply the last defender other than the goalkeeper. More than 99% of the time, the goalkeeper is the last defender anyway and the AR's job is to keep track of the last defender other than the GK. If the GK comes out past his or her other defenders, let that be part of the risk they take in coming out. It's often fairly exciting when a GK comes far off their line and the drawback to changing the rule would be if it greatly discouraged them from doing so. But it's a bit hard to envision how often knowing a teammate is replacing them as the 2nd-to-last-defender is much of a factor in a GK's decision to come out. On the plus side, I would think it would make the AR's job simpler to simply not have to worry about who's the 2nd-to-last defender, just the last defender not wearing the GK's kit.
I had this conversation with my dad the last time my mom and him came to our town to watch my son play. It was a 1-1 game, but my son's team had a lot of very good scoring chances (the opposing keeper was easily the MVP of the game - he had at least 4 fantastic saves, including one on a breakaway in the final minute). During the game, my dad said, "I just have a hard time getting into soccer. They just don't score enough. It's also why I can't get into hockey that much." I responded that it's really not about the score, but the number of scoring chances. The game we were watching was a free-flowing game with lots of ball movement, counter attacks, and scoring chances. That it was a 1-1 game didn't make it boring. So when we are talking about "lack of scoring", what we are really trying to solve is "lack of scoring CHANCES". Because a 0-0, 1-0, or 1-1 game with great saves and lots of good scoring chances can be a lot more interesting than a game with more scoring, but fewer scoring chances.
IMO Lacrosse is gaining players because of the greater scoring. Dads and moms don't have to pay full attention to see some goals (or chances created). And, alot of soccer players go a really long time (years) without scoring.
Radical idea — we need to rethink the concept of "playing the advantage" when the play is in the penalty area (or near it) as opposed to midfield. Advantage isn't realized just because a player is able to get closer to goal or the goal line when they're already in the box. They are losing advantage because the angle to the goal is becoming tighter, OR the goalkeeper is able to cut down the angle OR the goalkeeper is closer to taking the ball off the attacker's feet OR the attacker simply loses the option of shooting sooner while the goalkeeper has fewer contingencies to deal with Advantage isn't a simple black-and-white absolute and nowhere is this more obvious than in the penalty area. If advantage is played in the area, but ITOOTR the attacker loses much of the advantage as a result of the infraction, the Laws of the Game should REQUIRE the violator to be sanctioned with a yellow card EVEN IF A GOAL IS SCORED. Place it under the category of Unsporting Behavior. Or create a new category — Tactical Fouls In the Penalty Area (TFIPA) Reaching out and clutching/grabbing Trips or other obstructions Slide-in tackles with studs aimed at an attacking player How often do we see this happen in the penalty area but we allow play to go on because the attacker has some chance of realizing an advantage? But how often is the advantage dissipating even if the attacking player can keep their feet and make some kind of attacking maneuver? Let the play go on. Let the player who keeps on their feet try to do something with it. But come back and sanction the offending party. We may wind up with lots more defenders with yellow cards and many minutes to go in the game. GREAT! If we go back to 3 substitutes? WICKED!. Maybe we'll wind up with less cynical, negative defending in the box. Maybe we'll wind up with more shots on goal and better scoring opportunities. Why the hell not?