Orange slices for everyone, or the I Hate Soccer thread

Exactly.

MLS's original shootout idea was idiotic, although I prefer it to the PK shootout -- the hockey-style penalty shot isn't the automatic goal a PK usually is. Just let regular-season games end in ties. That's the result, big deal. This need to have a winner is fueled by TV, but I never felt cheated when I went to a hockey (or soccer) game and saw a tie.

The lack of a countdown clock is holding onto some "tradition" that went away when scoreboard technology moved away from rotary dials in the 1950s.

 

I don't like soccer, but I tolerate it. I don't mind covering a game every now and then or writing a story on it. But it's not my cup of tea. It's boring, and it comes off as just guys who take shots on goal hoping that, by God, when it's all said and done, one of their lucky kicks have found the back of the net more than the other team.

But...I'd rather watch soccer more than hockey or college football (I am one of the rare people, I'm sure, who couldn't give a crap about football, high school, college or pro) and I do appreciate the complexities of the game. Basketball or baseball are my two loves, basketball far and away No. 1, but I could see myself willing to study and learn soccer more because of the schemes and the intensity most matches draw. Even if I do the game as nothing more than running from side to side, kicking the ball all willy nilly, for now.

 

I don't like the ambiguity of injury time, but basically it is nearly always 3 or 4 minutes in the second half. I'd like them to have a running clock in the second half injury time (exactly 3 or 4 minutes) which stops on subs and goals.

 

And if the final on July 11 is 1-1 after 90 minutes . . . so be it?

Co-champions?

Or are elimination games "different"? If they are, then that's silly.

 

It's a tease. Seems like event on scale of World Cup should not end in a tie. What get's me is that teams are pleased with a tie.

If soccer is ever going to fully arrive in the US it seems like sport has to be open to criticism just like every other major US sport. It's all part of the fun.

 

I can't speak for all of them, but I think the billions of people who love soccer don't give a shit if Americans like it, and don't want to change the format so that Americans can better understand it.

 

It seems like their are lots of Americans who like the sport. Who is this "them" you speak of and where are they from?

 

Then, for God's sake, criticize soccer! No one's ever done that on this board before!

No one is claiming it's a perfect sport. Soccer fans themselves have plenty to criticize about the sport. But "Soccer is lame. Have a take and don't suck" isn't criticism, it's pandering.

 

Wouldn't there be a lot less ties after regulation if teams new that a tie wouldn't end the game?

Seems to me that too many teams play for a tie because it's a kind of win in many cases. If they knew there were no ties, maybe more teams would play to win and we'd see more exciting games.

 

That's a good point.

 

Actually, I think there would be more ... teams would play *more* conservatively to get to OT, especially if there was a "loser point" like they have in hockey (and that's precisely what happens in hockey).

FIFA a few years ago went to giving 3 points for a win (as opposed to 2 as had been done in the past) and 1 for a tie to reward teams for playing for a win, as the standings reward for a tie wasn't 1/2 of a win, but 1/3 of one.

MLS, when it had its hockey shootouts, went even further -- 3 points for a win, 1 for a SO win and 0 for a loss of either type -- to try to open the game up and discourage teams from playing for a tie.

Not much more that you can do to discourage ties.

One of the things I find difficult to get into soccer are the continuous OT (understand it due to advantages one team gets from wind/sun, but the "golden goal" is much more exciting) and the playoff format with the two-games, total-goals series, where the second game is played as a new game, but it's really just an extension of the first (and the "away goals rule" is just dumb). Either play a best-of-3 with OT and penalty shootouts at each game, or single-elimination, with the better team getting home-field advantage.

 

Yeah, giving any kind of reward for an overtime loss would not help deter ties.

And depending on how you break the tie -- penalty kicks for example -- some teams would play for a tie because they have a better shot winning (or getting lucky) there than in regulation.

But if you tell teams that they're going to keep playing soccer until a winner is determined and that there would be no reward for losing in overtime, I think you'd reduce ties.

Teams would be more aggressive and you wouldn't want to play a long overtime game because of fatigue issues in subsequent games.