i don’t think the gambling houses care a whit about having video review. The whole point of running a book is to balance the bets so you don’t care who wins. But the gamblers care who wins or bears the spread. A lot. When bets are made on point spread (in any sport) it turns meaningless scores into critical ones—for the gamblers.
They are trialing the daylight offside law change in the Canadian Premier league this year... https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/cpv7dr41yndo
The European Futsal championships ended two weeks ago and I got to see several full matches instead of the usual few minutes here and there. I loved how professional players were with each other and the referees. Unpopular referee decisions were explained to the captain and they acted rationally instead of what we see in outdoor soccer. I know it didn't make it in this year's IFAB rule change suggestions (and might be in the future), but the coaches review each team gets did not work as well as I had thought it would. Most were not successful as it didn't meet the "Clear and Obvious" threshold (sounds familiar) or the angles were just not there even on a much smaller surface. I agreed with their final outcomes. As an aside, I liked when the lead ref missed a deflection (as the whole team is pissed) and had the direction for the kick-in wrong, but you can tell the trail ref is telling him in his mic he got it wrong. The referee would simply change his signal and the opposing teams hardly said boo.
It will be interesting to see the impact of this on the game. My theory is that it will be all but impossible to be offside on crowded plays in the penalty area. Essentially , defenders will need to be 3 to 5 yards further upfield of an attacker compared to current laws to prevent overlap. For instance, goals waved off for offside on free kicks and following corner kicks will now be onside. Maybe this aligns more with the idea that offside was intended to eliminate cherry picking.
Trialing an offside Law change in a league without video review is diabolical in the current environment.
OMG. I didn't realize they didn't use VAR. That is insane--but may be indicative of what this (IMO stupid) Law change would be like for the 99%+ of games that don't have VAR.
I just think the main problem is that adaptation to the Law change (both by assistant referees and by teams' tactics) will be too slow to show the long-term effects that this change could have. If it takes assistant referees a few months to get consistent at this (and even then, it likely won't be as extremely onside-leaning as it would be with VAR), and then it could take several more months/years for tactics to converge on a new standard... it just seems really short-sighted to me. Who knows, maybe I'm wrong and defenses will start lining up in super low blocks right away and show the world what a dumb change this is. I hope this goes as poorly as possible, as fast as possible.
There is no learning curve. Look at almost every offside in today's game at the professional level. There almost never is day light anymore. The learning is keep the flag down unless he's a mile offside.
It makes one wonder if FIFA chose a league w/o VAR specifically to make the move seem smoother than it will be. I'm all for more attacking soccer, but all it did - for the world of VAR especially - is change one technicality (is attacker slightly ahead of defender w/and scoring surface) to a different one (is attacker completely clear of any part of defender). I see no improvement w/VAR matches.
there re multiple learning curves. Attackers need to learn to adjust their timing. The goal of a forward (often) is to be just barely onside so as to pass the 2LD. Now that men’s being even. Under the trial, it will be stealing g that extra yard-ish to have a cleaner path. (Of course, that is why there is rarely daylight today—that is about a yard offside. It will happen a lot more once attackers have a much greater ability to get behind defenders.) That will take time for them to break their ingrained timing. And defenders have a curve. Defenders have to learn (as individuals and as team tactics) how to adjust to the fact that an attacker can be behind them yet onside. And it is sure as heck going to be a learning curve for ARs. Not I. Learning what the Law is, that’s simple. But in learning what to expect to best be ready to make what is going to be a harder call to make.players are going to start playing differently because of the change.
Besides defenses playing farther back, opening up the midfield at the expense of "exciting" runs toward the goal, I suspect we'll end up with a lot more defenders impeding attackers on their runs, staying directly in front of them, etc... That's because in the past, a defender's best option was to hold a line, step up, and put an attacker offside, but if that gives attackers a major advantage from the rule change, they'll switch to more of a basketball-type defending, blocking them away from a path to the goal with their body and slowing them down with (mostly legal) obstruction.
Oh, even better. A new review system mixed in with a new OS standard. What could possibly go wrong with that?
The Athletic has an article about time wasting and restarts triggered by Arsenal taking a cummulative 30 minutes+ on restarts. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/70...-arteta-time-wasting-brighton-premier-league/
Man, can you imagine if professional soccer implemented an official timekeeper where they keep the running clock to appease everyone but the timekeepers actually sits there stopping and starting a secondary clock for every restart? Every half ends with 10-15 minutes of stoppage time? Man, that would be so great. I just laugh every time this topic comes up, because I earnestly wonder if these people who complain wonder what it is about soccer that makes it the only sport in the world where timewasting is so prevalent. Gosh it must be something. Can’t put my finger on it
That is basically what AVAR4 is at world cups. They have a stopwatch that starts and stops for hydration, video review, etc.
Is that when they were having games with 10+ minutes of stoppage time and people were all confused why there was so much? Yeah, that’s what all these leagues should do. Keep the running clock, but every single time the ball goes OOP, start the stopwatch and stop it once the restart commences. Throw in, goal kick, corner kick, penalty kick, free kick, injury, VAR, substitution, all of it.
But the game isn't predicated on 90 minutes of ball-in-play time. Yes, timewasting can be combatted better or genuine time lost can be better accounted for. But if you premise everything on the idea that the ball is supposed to be in play for 90 minutes, you're missing the point. Players' careers would be shortened or destroyed by that. The entire economics for professional level clubs would be upended. Absolutely no one wants or is advocating for 90 minutes of ball-in-play time. Except maybe you? And, on the flip side, a total stopped clock would change the game beyond all recognition, including the inevitable (and likely immediate) introduction of television timeouts. The idea of a constant flow of 45-minute halves that fans and viewers can enjoy (even if time is wasted and even though the ball is only in play for 28-30 minutes) would be over. You have a simple solution to a simple problem. But you either don't recognize or don't care that it changes the sport irrevocably. And what it would take away is exactly one of the things that makes it so popular with so many people.
Well, we kinda already have TV time outs for the WC . . . I agree we need better control on time wasting amd also abhor the idea of a “stop clock” model. If we went with a stop clock, it would probably be a 60 minute game to get about the same playing time—and I suspect the game would probably take a lot longer because there would be less pressure to actually take restarts since the clock was stopped. I think timing is just another way that the modern world clashes with the ideals of soccer. It’s not long go that the ref had a watch, the ref added on time as he saw fit, and the classic answer to “how much time is left” was “plenty” or “enough.” That doesn’t fly as well in today’s world where everyone has a precise digital watch (or smart phone) to track time and we watch other sports get excited about tenths of a second.mi’d like to go back to the good old days, but there’s a reason IFAB gave up and started having the added time displayed.
I think his suggestion is close to what I want. Instead of running a stopwatch for every single restart, which would result in far more effective playing time than has ever been normal, they should run this stopwatch strictly during all situations for which the Laws of the Game require the referee to add time. And the clock should remain a running clock upward, with accurate time added on to the end. I'll also point out that the sport, as it's currently played at the professional level, is not "a constant flow" at all. Teams waste time because they know it works, they know that the real amount of time wasted is never (except perhaps at FIFA events 2022-2024) added back. A 4-minute injury stoppage magically becomes 3 minutes of added time, with a whole minute lost to the ether. We see less antics, and a lot less of the losing team stressing about them, if players actually believed and trusted that the full amount of time lost for these things would be added back on. I don't watch enough PL to know Arsenal's tactics very well. But I do perceive that the PL generally is not very rigorous about its added time calculations, and that their referees generally don't want to call a penalty for holding during a corner kick unless someone's arm is ripped out of its socket. So I think perhaps Arsenal are taking advantage of the latitude the referees are allowing, in terms of set piece tactics and timewasting. You reap what you sow.
Why say that I’m the only person advocating for it? The post is a response to a study done by the athletic on the rampant timewasting in premier league. Obviously they feel this a problem, as no other sport in the world has studies for timewasting. And these types of studies have been done in the past. And there’s been complaints for quite a long time about it. And it’s the only sport where players feel the need to DELIBERATELY delay the game with tactics. Maybe saying having a stoppage time clock that records every second of ball out of play to add on at the end would be extreme, but it’s a constant source of complaining with the meandering around restarts injuries and subs. IFAB could come up with exactly which restarts to meticulously time to add it on. if you want to make the argument that “the modern game couldn’t cope with that much time being played”, then fine, if it can’t, then people can’t complain about timewasting tactics during restarts, or subs walking off the field, or players staying down injured (which seems like t will be somewhat remedied by forcing them to stay off the field for two minutes), or being upset that the ref gave “only x minutes of stoppage time” when he’s pulling it out of his ass anyway
I just don’t get the clamoring for all this “lost time”. The vast majority of games played are NOT professional games. They are games at local parks and fields and they go on back to back to back every Saturday and Sunday. In many of those games there isn’t even stoppage time as the next set of teams has to take the field to get ready to play their game. In things like tournaments the rules of competition often state explicitly that no stoppage time will be given at all. They can’t afford for games and fields to fall behind. Even when it’s added, it’s minimal at best and normally for extended injury stoppages. Throw ins? These fields do not have a massive number of extra balls ringing the field on cones. They don’t even have ball shaggers. The ball just flies off to the adjacent field, it gets retrieved and we go back to play. Nobody is screaming that play is delayed for a throw in. And do you know what? Nobody on those fields is complaining for 10 minutes of extra time. Doni think the change to the 8 second count and associated corner “penalty” was a good change? Yes I do. It’s not only worked to change the flow of the game positively, it’s been so well adapted that it is almost never called. GKers learned and adapted tactics to play quickly for fast attacks. Will a Futsal style countdown for throw in work? I doubt it will have the same effect as the defense has a say in who is open to throw to. But that’s not really going to “save time” per se. I’m sorry, but aside from very visible professional matches, the logistics of time and field usages will be in opposition.