Semi-automated offside: Why Arsene Wenger thinks it can fix VAR: https://www.espn.com/soccer/blog-fi...fside-why-arsene-wenger-thinks-it-can-fix-var
I heard about this yesterday and just could not believe it: https://www.marca.com/en/football/international-football/2021/07/18/60f4094622601d3d168b45c1.html Here, we take a look at what the new rules are and at how they're being trialled at this event. Two 30-minute halves The first change would see halves reduced to 30 minutes each, with a stopwatch used whenever there is any interruption in the match. Unlimited changes As a result of the pandemic, the number of substitutions has increased from three to five. However, the possibility of unlimited changes is now being studied during the tournament. Yellow card sin bins Yellow cards would carry a greater punishment than they do at present. Players who receive one would have to leave the field for five minutes, meaning the team would be momentarily outnumbered. Kick-ins instead of throw-ins Throw-ins would be able to be taken with the foot, instead of the ball having to be thrown back in after going out over the sideline. Dribbling from corners Finally, players would be able to take the aforementioned kick-ins and corners without having to combine with another teammate first. Instead, they would be able to drive the ball into play themselves.
I hate most of the ideas but it would be interesting to watch. My biggest frustration is with the clock, but I’d like to see it run like rugby rather than a constantly stop and start clock like in American sports.
The only one I would not mind would be the you can kick it to yourself on FKs and Corners. But even that might make me cringe a bit.
1) Smaller penalty area, so that there are fewer PK's called and fewer matches decided by controversial PK calls. How about an 20-yd semi-circle from the center-point of the goal line? And the penalty spot moved back to lower PK conversion rates to below 50%. 2) Further narrowing of the definition of "handball", so that only plays where the defender moves their hand/arm into the path of the ball AFTER it is struck are offenses. No more of this "natural/unnatural arm position" nonsense. 3) Get rid of the "clear and obvious" standard for VAR, given that the definition of "clear and obvious" is just as subjective as anything else.
VAR sucks. I fully realize that I'm just one crackpot but soccer's just completely unwatchable now. The game's fatal flaw has always been too much discretion in the hands of one ref. This had led to widespread cheating in every single game before VAR. Now we've made it so that literally any play in the penalty area can be a game deciding penalty (because if you look hard enough you can ALWAYS find a foul.) We haven't improved reffing with VAR, we've just given refs more power to decide the game. So I'll stick with the NPSL, which can't afford VAR, and then eventually I'll have to give up my passion altogether when they inevitably adopt it. Sigh.
Big Soccer: We need to open up scoring. The game is too boring and there's too many 0-0s in big matches late in games. Also Big Soccer: Let's make it harder for teams to score goals by making the penalty area smaller and getting rid of VAR that catches when players do clear and obvious fouls on attacking players. (I love this place. So darn much.)
Scoring from open play and scoring from questionable PK decisions are two very different things. I want more of the former and less of the latter. I don't want more scoring, per se...I want more good scoring opportunities from open play.
I support a smaller goal area, but of course not a smaller penalty area. Another way to open up the game would be to require 3 players at either side of the field. Or abolish the offside rule...
136th Annual General Meeting: The IFAB permanently approves five-substitute option in top-level competitions➡️ https://t.co/iHCIMgwMJE pic.twitter.com/FfIB4xsp90— The IFAB (@TheIFAB) June 13, 2022
"IFAB agreed to increase the number of substitutes allowed on the bench from 12 to 15, plus the 11 players on the pitch, taking the potential matchday squad to 26. Individual competitions must choose whether to adopt the new measure." 26 players/squad in Qatar hasn't been confirmed but it increasingly looks like that'll be the case.
Trouble with the laws is that the punishment doesn't always fit the crime, and that causes referees to bend the laws to fit what seems more just. And then you get controversy. Penalty kicks, yellow cards, red cards, it's all messed up IMO.
Literally case in point: Tomori today in Milan v. Chelsea. You have a soft foul in the box. Penalty and red card early in the match. One decision decides the entire game, more or less. No question that if it's a foul, it's a penalty and a red. But you have questions about whether it was a foul in the first place. And I think the people calling for no foul are being influenced by the consequences. Let's call it a 50/50 call. The laws of the game should not come down to the ref's decision on that play has such tremendous consequences. The rules are flawed IMO.
The problem seems to be that a single referee decision carries far too much weight on the game. An early red is far more punitive than a late red, so early in the match a referee is caught between choking on a whistle when discretion permits or giving a red that must be given. This also carries over into decisions in the area. Goals are too rare, so a single decision has an outsized impact on the match. A couple solutions: -reduce the penalty for a red to a 30 minute (or whatever duration) sin bin where the offending team can get vs k to full strength after 30, but the offender can’t re-enter. -increase the number of goals to make a goal earned off a subjective decision less punitive. Don’t know how you do that. Fewer than 11 a dude seems drastic but it would help. Field into thirds where there is no offside when the ball is advanced into the attacking third. It would need to be pretty drastic to materially affect the scoring.
In an ideal world, the referee could have two options. If an obvious goal scoring opportunity was taken away by foul play, the ref could give a straight penalty. If no obvious goal scoring opportunity was taken away by foul play, say, for example a few bacteria are rubbed off a defender's arm by a stray ball on a corner kick or something, the ref could offer a punishment that was something less than a slam dunk goal. Perhaps an MLS-style shootout penalty? I'm under no illusions that our world is anything close to ideal.
Good ideas. I've been thinking do something along these lines: Red card for SFP/VC puts you down a man for 45 minutes. Red card for DOGSO puts you down a man until a goal gets scored by the opponent, plus maybe 15 extra minutes (with a cap at 30 minutes total). Something like a power play in hockey, but with some added time to discourage blatant DOGSO when a goal is there to be had. If the opponent scores a penalty straightaway, then the power play only lasts 15 minutes. For a foul in the goal box, the goal is awarded. Something like goal tending in basketball. Fouls that close to the goal are pretty unusual, I think, so this would be rarely invoked. For a foul in the penalty box but outside the goal box, there should still be a penalty, but penalties should be changed so they are more difficult to score. The old run-up the MLS used long ago could work. Or maybe a 2-on-2 setup (2 attackers, 1 defender, 1 keeper). The point of the above would be to make the referee more likely to apply the rules uniformly -- i.e., actually call fouls when they are in the box. As it stands, refs often won't call "soft" fouls in the box, or when they do you get all kinds of fallout like the Tomori situation today. One challenge with a sin-bin approach is the difficulty in policing it as the ref. No big deal in a pro match, where there are officials galore on the field. But in a grassroots or school game, it's a bit tougher.
Players have to be accountable. Not the rules or the one who applies the rules. You do not change the rules because you think it is too harsh or it has a great impact on the match.
But that’s exactly what refs do. They factor in the consequences, and bend or even misapply the rules in the process.
Then that’s bad refereeing, so the refs should be punished, or trained properly, or retrained. We don’t need to change the rules of the game. Since the VAR creation refereeing quality has taken a dive. It’s awful. Everyone relies on the VAR as an excuse to do anything, or not do anything, to call anything or not to call anything. It’s becoming a joke and I predict that this situation will become a huge issue in the upcoming WC. The VAR is the Covid of football. It has become an excuse used to bend, break, and ignore the rules. The referees are doing with the VAR what politicians have done with Covid.
The laws are constantly being changed so we don't need to act like they are gospel. In fact, the double jeopardy law was just added a couple of years ago that addresses the precise example referred to above in the Milan match. It's just that the Milan player made no attempt on the ball so he got what he deserved But it's still strange that a red card can mean close to nothing or it can tilt an entire match depending what minute it occurs in. I think a further tweak can be made to address this problem.
Anyway, when I saw that this thread came back to life, I thought you guys would be talking about the disallowed Man City goal yesterday. Absolute madness that an innocent ball-to-arm situation 25 yards from the net in the build-up denies a goal. I could understand if the ball bounced off Mahrez directly into the goal, but not this. Talk about a Law that needs changing. Or I think it was changed, in which case it needs to get changed back ASAP - before the World Cup ideally.