There are a couple simple minor tweaks that can be made to the offside rule but the most significant boost to the game will come from rule changes that address situations like the one I call the Attacker's Dilemma. For instance, when an attacker is able to get the ball into the area and take it near the goal line but his (or her) progress is blocked by the GK and by defenders collapsing back in front of goal. The attacker faces a dilemma. Having won this precious space to work with and having moved up the workable (that is onside) attacking area to now cover the entire field almost up to goal, how does he use the space? Many times his best option is to send a pass backwards, making use of this space but in doing so, almost always instantly giving back that precious space he has just won. The ball goes back, the defenders step forward and the original attacker himself is offside, as well as any others who had moved up parallel to him. That is the game we're used to but that's awfully hard to square with the original justification for offside in the first place, which we all understand properly bans crude tactics of cherry-picking or "goal-hanging" (I think that's the term the British use). That is why I say the rule as it applies here is not in keeping with the essential character of the game.* The current rule places too great a burden on the offense and doesn't offer sufficient reward for the kind of attacking and penetrating plays that it should be rewarding. However, any solution to the Attacker's Dilemma is bound to be a major and fairly radical changing of the rules. Revolutionary even by the standards of the game. I'm tempted to even call this the Grail of rule changes. A handful of other changes can and should be made, but while they may have noticeable effect, they should be understood in the context of the sea-change - they will only have full effect when we come up with a solution to the Attacker's Dilemma. * would it be more precise to say, the rule as applied here is not preserving or protecting anything that is an essential characteristic of the game?
I guess a person could argue that the goal today is smaller in proportion to average human height than in the year that the dimensions of the goal were first establsished. I suppose you could create a ratio of goal dimensions to human average height for whatever year the dimensions of the goal were first established, and then resize the goal to maintain that ratio. The main argument against this proposal is the cost in replacing goals around the world. For poorer nations, this change could be a bit burdensome. However, if this was announced as an event not to repeated again any time soon, perhaps the cost would not be considered prohibitive since goals have to be replaced every once in awhile anyway.
Well, one advantage in tweaking the offside rule over modifying the dimensions of the goal is that there would be almost no new equipment required. In another thread it was mentioned awhile back that Johann Cruyff and Beckenbauer liked an NASL rule where a player is always onside behind a 35 yard line, rather than behind the halfway line (on the other side of the 35 yard line the current offside rule applies). A 35 yard line keeps the spirit and intent of the offside rule which was to prevent a team from keeping a player or players camped out right in the GK's face (which as you mentioned was done in early soccer matches played with no offside rule), but potentially opens up more space for teams to operate. Granted, the situation you describe (at least as I understand it) would still be offside if this rule were adopted. The only way the situation you described would not be offside would be under some variant of the hockey offside rule. My problem with the hockey rule is that whole ugly "dumping" business we see in hockey. I don't think I would like seeing players dump the soccer ball. Regardless, I feel some sort of offside rule is needed in order to prevent cherry picking. http://ussoccerplayers.typepad.com/ussoccerplayers/a-worthy-experiment.html
Absolutely agree we don't want to see a version of hockey's "dumping the puck". Also absolutely agree we need the offside rule. As far as the Attacker's Dilemma, I have some promising ideas I think but I want to think it through a little bit more . But don't you agree this is the kind of situation where the offside rule is unnecessarily cruel to the offense? At some point the offense has earned the right to some space around the goal and to the space opened behind the ball when the defenders collapse. At some point the offense has attacked within the spirit of the rules and what they're doing, or would like to be doing, has nothing to do with "cherrypicking", which is what we all agree the offside rule is designed to prevent. ** (regarding the 35-yard line rule, I've written that I'm now skeptical although I'm one of the guys that brought it up having just heard about it recently. But it's a plausible idea and, yes, from what I heard Cruyff and Beckenbauer liked some of the NASL ideas, possibly including this one.)
Flow and goals have picked up but still intersting question and interesting responses on low scoring "attackers dilemma" is truly a dilemma. I'm not sure you'd get dump ins like hockey as there's no end boards or corner. A dump is just a pass to space that goes for goal luck if too far. That pass to space behind defenders is oft tried but hard to execute in soccer.
One would think that the Group C matches this morning would produce a lot of scoring seeing as three of the four teams will be looking for wins. Only Slovenia would likely be content with a 0-0 draw.
Ha! I guess you were right. Either way, US tops England! Before this tournament I never imagined I would write those words.
Oddly, the only match that played out as I predicted was England-USA. Playing a tight, under pressure England in the first match of the tournamant I thought we might escape with a low scoring draw. Against Slovenia I was expecting either a 1-0 win, or a 0-0 or 1-1 draw given what I saw of them in qualification. Never did I imagine 4 goals in that match. Against Algeria, I thought the the U.S. would come away with a fairly comfortable 2-0 or 3-0 win, but not a nail-biting 1-0 result (granted, if not for the ref my pre-match prediction might heve been accurate).
A review of the numbers historically: 1930: 3.9 1934: 4.1 1938: 4.7 1950: 4.0 1954: 5.4 1958: 3.6 1962: 2.8 1966: 2.8 1970: 3.0 1974: 2.6 1978: 2.7 1982: 2.8 1986: 2.5 1990: 2.2 1994: 2.7 1998: 2.7 2002: 2.5 2006: 2.3
Ya, Ivory Coast needs to win by 9 goals against North Korea to have any hope of advancing according to soccernet. We'll see what happens!
Another interesting stat. Not only are percentage of shots on target down significantly, but more than 80% of far post crosses are missing their intended target. http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/story/_/id/801875/ce/uk/
Not sure, but there have been about 25 set piece goals. I would assume at least a few of those came off of corners. http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/statistics/teams/goals.html