Why not suspend the offside rules ONLY during the sudden death overtime period. This would open up the game tremendously, create more scoring chances, and possibly lessen the likelihood of a game being decided by penalty kicks. Coaches would have to adjust their strategies and tactics, like they do in any situation in the game. Field hockey got rid of the offside rule in 1996 and it has made that game more exciting. Tell me if you think it's a good idea or not; and why you think it is a bad idea.
Interesting thought, but why change the rules of the game during overtime when you just played for 90 minutes with standard rules? I think losing on a technically offside goal would feel even worse than losing on PK's or on a golden goal and cheapen the game even further. If we're going to suspend the laws of the game, why don't we just let them pick up the ball and throw it into the net? - I think maybe the root of the problem (or maybe not a problem at all depending on who you talk to) may be how the games is played during regular time if a winnnig goal can't be scored. No doubt, banishing the offside rule and variations of the rule have been proposed before as a solution to increase scoring. IMHO I'm pretty happy where the game is. I would prefer a clear victory, but sometimes a game ending in PK's can be exciting. You just don't want to see it EVERY game. If you had to change the rules, I'm in favor of pulling off a player for every minute of overtime starting with the keeper (worked okay in one of my rec leagues )
Thanks. I just wanted to find a way to decide the game on the field by opening up the game more during the sudden death period, especially when just one goal would be needed to win, and minimize the chances games would be decided on penalties, which have been widely criticized as an unfair way to decide games, as the best teams usually does not win these penalty shootout. You already have somewhat of a rule change now in overtime, where a lone goal wins a game, unlike during the regular 90 mins, where the team that scores the most goals during those 90 mins wins the game.
As good an idea as any I've seen here. There are a lot of "Cherry Pickers" out there already, without the offside you'd just get a couple of strikers, or four, holding hands with the goalie and lots of long boots upfield. Maybe not a good idea. Welcome to BS, come and join the sane, sort of, crowd in Liverpool's board.
An article from the NCAA Collegiate Sports in the United States in October 1998. Can this be applied to soccer, at least in the sudden death overtime?: Changes in field hockey offside rule and scoring circle have opened up the game BY HEATHER D. YOST STAFF WRITER Technically, the field of play is no different than before. But recent rules changes have given field hockey coaches and players a bigger field to maximize offensive moves and defensive coverages. The most dramatic change came two years ago when the International Hockey Federation (FIH) set out to make the game more exciting by remanding the offside rule. While that didn't change the size of the field, it changed how the field is used. '(The rule change) has certainly opened up and lengthened the field,' said Kathy Tierney, assistant athletics director and field hockey coach at Lebanon Valley College and NCAA rules-modifications interpreter. 'The change has put a challenge to defenses to cover a greater part of the field, identify and maximize coverage of crucial space and, more than anything, make quick decisions. It is a faster-moving game, and the defenses are put to the ultimate challenge of combating that.' When the rule was in effect, a player was considered offside if she received the ball from a teammate and was inside the opponent's 25-yard scoring area, in front of the ball and nearer the back line than two opposing players. The change in the offside rule has altered thinking on both sides of the ball. Defensively, teams that worked to draw offenses offside have had to remove that page from the playbook. 'We tried to draw the other team offside,' said Sally Scatton, chair of the NCAA Division III Field Hockey Committee and head coach at William Smith College. 'Our game has changed focus from a defensive standpoint. We have to be a lot more aware defensively and aggressively attack the offense at all times.' Maintaining steady pressure on the offensive attack is particularly key now as more offensive players can join the attack and offenses find alternative uses for space. 'I think the skill level of players today is tremendous,' said Cristy Freese, coach at Central Michigan University and chair of the NCAA Division I Field Hockey Committee. 'I think the offside rule was doing a lot to slow down the offense. Now, the defenses are spread and the game is opened up. All the players are so skilled now, you have to put constant pressure on the ball.' Just as defenses have gone back to the drawing board since the offside change, so too have offenses been forced to adjust. 'It has changed offenses dramatically with the type of offensive movements that are available,' Tierney said. 'We are seeing more uses of specific spaces, like give-and-go's off the end lines. The offense has been opened up to be more creative with its use of space.'
Another rule change thread... Soon someone will probably find the link to that website who suggested the six-yard area to be a sandbox.
bad idea imo You will have 4 attackers in the attacking 1/3rd of the pitch... waiting for the mids and defenders to lob balls into the danger zone How about change the offside area. Instead of being at half...how about 35 yards from the goal line ? (is that what the NCAA article is talking about, i just skimmed through it)
Bad,bad, bad idea. As has been pointed out, you do not change the rules of the game for OT after 90 minutes of playing by one set of rules. Even if it works in Field Hockey, that doesn't matter. This is soccer. We shouldn't play our OT's by another sport's rules. We shouldn't change our rules for OT because it works somewhere else. It used to be if you were tied after 30 minutes of extra time, you would replay the whole game on another day. But that is hard to schedule with so many games on the current calendar, so they came up with PK's after a full 30 minutes if still tied. You could score however many goals in OT as long as it was tied by the end of the 30. In order to appease those who bitch that teams just played defensively in OT to protect their asses, they came up with the golden goal, hoping that first score wins would encourage teams to attack. The offside rule is a good rule. It makes the game a lot more exciting no matter what anyone thinks. Refs do have to apply the letter of the law a bit better here, but the rule should not be changed, whether for OT or for regulation play. The game works, people. Let's quit coming up with ways to change something that ain't broke.
Before the rule change, a hockey player would be offside in the 25 yard area. Now it's the 16 yard area. As a change, any player in the 18 yard box would be offside. But I appreciate the comments.
The 35 yard line was the rule for NASL. But your first paragraph pretty much summarizes why this rule change won't have the desired effect, because with those 4 attackers will be 4 defenders, guys who otherwise might think about going forward, but who won't for fear of a breakaway. Instead of having a more wide-open game in extra time, you'll have, as people have said, more long, speculative boots upfield. Not pretty, less so even than PKs. Have other people played in one-day tournaments where there was no offside rule? Usually, you'd play 30-40 minute matches with no offside, and while there might be more goals, it would be less pretty than our typical -- and already visually unappealing-- games. I don't think field hockey would be a good analogy for soccer, incidently, as the ball can't travel nearly as far as a soccer ball can.
It would be an even better idea if they just enforced the offside rule fairly--this means that if there is any doubt as to whether a player is offiside, it should be ruled in favor of the attacking player. I've seen too many goals disallowed because the player was ajudged to have been offside and the replay is inconclusive.
I appreciate all the comments on the proposed rule change. I am pretty aware that the offside rule in soccer is there to help the game play more smoothly. I would like to see what moving the offside rule from the half line to the 18 yard box would do.
Another idea to solve the tieing game is to make the goal 6 inches wider and 6 inches higher. Almost in all (or a lot of) games, you would see a couples of balls hitting the posts or hitting the cross bar. With a littler bigger goal, those balls will get into the net. Therefore, someone scores and there will be no need for penalty kick at the end. (Assume that the probability of both teams hitting the same numbers of post/cross-bar is less than not equal. Otherwise we get the tie game again.) This will also make the games become a little higher scoring game.
I don't think your idea is a good one, for reasons mentioned earlier in this thread. But why do you feel the need to change the game to avoid a situation that really doesn't come up very often, in the big picture, and, IMO, is exciting to watch when it does? Most national leagues, if not all, allow draws (which is fine), and in tournaments where a winner must be determined, one usually is, either in regular time or OT. Off the top of my head, I can think of only 10 or 12 W/C matches that have gone to PKs since 1982. I'm sure I've left some out, but overall, there just ain't that many PSOs. 1982 W. GER-FRA 1986 W.GER-MEX FRA-BRA 1990 ARG-ITA W. GER-ENG 1994 SWE-ROM BRA-ITA 1998 BRA-HOL FRA-ITA 2002 KOR-ESP
You think by doing this that balls will stop hitting the posts and crossbar..? It won't! And then more people will say "Look at those balls hitting the woodwork, let's make the goals 9ft by 25 ft and that will stop the balls hitting the posts and we'll get more goals" But balls will still hit the posts and people will say let's .................... I don't THINK so.
In the early days of "American Soccer" when we wanted to do it our way, as opposed to the way of rest of the world. We experimented with a hockey type 'blue line' and it failed miserably. We tried clocking the game like football or basketball and that was plain silly. Then we tried to play with the rest of the world instead of 'soccer isolation' and found it was more fun and we got better and better. And why would you want to change hockey even. What's more exciting than 10 guys beating the crap out of each other with sticks...!? Like the man said "If it ain’t broke, don't fix it" The problem with coming from one sport to a new one is that you want the rules from the old one to apply so it's easier for you to follow. “If you don’t like it, then find a sport you do like” This is a general comment not personal Becks
Silver Goal Looks like UEFA has come up with another "Innovative" way to avoid PK's: http://www.uefa.com/competitions/UEFACup/news/Kind=1/newsId=66400.html http://www.ussoccerplayers.com/news_you_can_use/356578.html