Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Not to Fix Soccer

freedom-to-tinker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 151 posts

Re: How Not to Fix Soccer

#61

Post by zazi »

Maro wrote: post #54
zazi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best example is the NBA: advanced technical rules at NBA games aren't stopping anyone from playing basketball on the courts or at the High School level. alternatively, basketball has so many rules that it prevents first timers from truly picking up the game at all... ie. a non-intuitive game > Would it really kill soccer if we had video replay? Has the lack of video replays killed soccer? Why stop at video repl…

Players constantly lying/cheating certainly has a negative effect on how the game is perceived. I know it has an effect on me. Also, it has a noticably negative effect at the kids playing at the amateur level. At one of the World Cup games the commentator noted that he teaches his young kid that diving/cheating is part of soccer and it's important to be good at it. Sports are supposed to be a part of life where cheat…

> At one of the World Cup games the commentator noted that he teaches his young kid that diving/cheating is part of soccer and it's important to be good at it.

You make a good point.. there are negative effects of the current state. I'm not too sure that having video replays would address it effectively though. In reality, the number of video replays would probably have to be artificially limited (ie. 3 per team etc). So this might just fuel a diving culture where teams dive so much to get the other team to use up their video replays. i'm not saying that it might turn out this way, but i guess it can still go both ways.

Regardless, the commentator ought to be shot =)

Re: How Not to Fix Soccer

#62

Post by edanm »

adw wrote: post #21

Broadly speaking, European sports evolved before the spectator-sports industry and, as a result, are primarily for playing; American sports evolved afterwards and have been shaped (to a greater extent) by needing to be good to watch.

Quick check on Wikipedia shows Baseball was gaining popularity around 1860, and Basketball around 1900. Football was introduced around 1860.

What am I missing?

Re: How Not to Fix Soccer

#63

Post by bukkake »

ErrantX wrote: post #55
bukkake wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a former ref and longtime player. I understand the flow of the game very well. Americans don't want to slow the game down in the slightest. What they want is more justice, post-mortem oversight, and less preventable human error. Anyone faking an injury on my pitch used to get a red card for conduct detrimental to the game. So I consider 5 minutes to be very generous. I'm aware that it's quite a long time. That's…

To most of us, you seem like the abused who now sympathizes with the abuser. You want egregious human error unjustly changing match outcomes? You want to continue to foster an ethic of diving and unsportsmanship? No; and in fairness this is the only legitimate criticism I can accept about the game. It's a new thing as well and entirely to do with the players and their ethos rather than the rules of the game. It's a c…

The spin thing was changed in 2008 with a rules tweak. It used to be that excessive spin on a ball signified that the player did not "use both hands" by virtue of favoring one hand over the other (to create spin).

Now it's "holds the ball with both hands", which allows for spin, but it's still seen as bad form in some circles.

Re: How Not to Fix Soccer

#64

Post by edanm »

One of the reasons Poker is so popular is that even a terrible player can beat a pro by chance, some of the time. I've always suspected the same is true of Football.

Any attempt to "fix" the game by making refereeing better makes the game more fair. While that might seem like a good thing, I don't think anyone is qualified to decide whether that will make the game more or less popular. And considering it's the world's most popular sport, tinkering with the games in unpredictable ways is stupid.

Re: How Not to Fix Soccer

#65

Post by Maro »

ErrantX wrote: post #57
Maro wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Alot. No. Not at all. Games are already being interrupted constantly by players diving, kicking each other. Video replays wouldn't add that much.

Of course they would. Your looking at 30s plus for a video replay. Plus then the restart recommended by the ref. A free kick or other call is a few seconds usually (unless it is tense, or important edge of the box stuff etc. which adds to the drama of the game).

The game stops for 30 seconds after debatable situations anyway. Also, the rule could be set up in such a way that the main ref. has the option to call for the video replay if he's not sure. That way, the ref. can keep the game smooth but ask the 5th ref. to examine the video replay before game changing decisions.

Re: How Not to Fix Soccer

#66

Post by ErrantX »

Maro wrote: post #65
ErrantX wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they would. Your looking at 30s plus for a video replay. Plus then the restart recommended by the ref. A free kick or other call is a few seconds usually (unless it is tense, or important edge of the box stuff etc. which adds to the drama of the game).

The game stops for 30 seconds after debatable situations anyway. Also, the rule could be set up in such a way that the main ref. has the option to call for the video replay if he's not sure. That way, the ref. can keep the game smooth but ask the 5th ref. to examine the video replay before game changing decisions.

Time it next time this happens. Barring injury a game does not frequently stop for a full 30 seconds, even when contentious decisions happen. And in cases where it does I wouldn't want to see it stopped even longer.

One of the attractions of the game is that the referee is the law; he makes a decision on his best judgement and that is the game.

I see your point; and it has merit. But I think it really detracts from the spirit, the flow and the attraction of the game :)

Re: How Not to Fix Soccer

#67

Post by jules »

ErrantX wrote: post #23
Maro wrote: post #16

I am familiar with the FIFA's reasoning, and I just don't think it holds up. The best example is the NBA: advanced technical rules at NBA games aren't stopping anyone from playing basketball on the courts or at the High School level. Also, the rules are different anyways. At the FIFA level, games are played on large fields for 2x45 minutes, there are 4 refs, etc. AFAIR HS level games were 2x30 minutes and we were luc…

Would it really kill soccer if we had video replay? Yes. Alot. Injuries already interrupt the flow of the game - and one thing Football is good at is flowing (one reason I personally enjoy it). A good game is non-stop action (which is my only criticism of US sports - I usually get bored waiting for baseball for example :)) Match outcomes are routinely altered by erroneous ref. decisions, decisions which the whole wor…

> Yes. Alot. Injuries already interrupt the flow of the game - and one thing Football is good at is flowing (one reason I personally enjoy it).

Many many injuries are players pretending to be injured. Video capture would stop those "injuries". And if there is an injury you don't need to stop for 30 seconds. Replay reviewing can be quicker than the time it takes for the player to get up.

> bad decisions aren't all that prevalent

They are extremely prevalent, especially not punishing players who pretend to be injured.

Re: How Not to Fix Soccer

#68

Post by daleharvey »

this is fairly obviously wrong? children dont play to a clock in their backyard, they very very rarely play offside and they certainly dont give any yellow or red cards.

I agree part of the beauty of the game is that you can play the same game in the park with friends, but most of the arguments were against details of the same game, not changing it (stopping clock, replays etc).

Re: How Not to Fix Soccer

#69

Post by zalew »

bukkake wrote: post #26

The argument outlined in the article is absurd. Soccer is and has been by far the most popular sport participation wise in the USA for decades. I played and refereed it competitively for close to two decades until I started having problems with my knees. Most Americans are very well versed in soccer and have either played it themselves or have at least watched their kids play it. Most Americans have no problems with…

2. Officiating standards are laughable. There is an unacceptably large amount of variation between referees regarding what is and is not legal play. This makes it very difficult for teams to plan matchups and it condemns every game to a lengthy "feeling-out process" where, by trial and error, the sides determine the refereeing standards. This is not to say that there is no room for subjectivity; what I'm saying is that you have effective anarchy right now and it's a turnoff for American viewers.

The reasons some people hate certain aspects are the same reasons why most love it. Football has it's faults but many of them are the reasons why it's so exciting. Referees can ruin the game and we all know it, but standarizing every aspect of the game (the American way) it's not the method the current majority of fans would like to see.

Football evolves. Remember the golden goal? The silver goal? FIFA takes actions and football constantly changes. If it doesn't change in favor of your way, it doesn't mean it went wrong. Football is very unpredictable and I think FIFA takes care to leave it that way. F.ex. the golden goal was also meant to make the extra time even more unpredictable, but resulted a very defensive game, so they cancelled it.

Re: How Not to Fix Soccer

#70

Post by ugh »

I think something is off this World Cup. Quite a few referees seem to be overly pedantic. Not every small jostle should stop the game, not every foul warrants a yellow card. Whistle and card happy referees seem to me to be the overarching problem, not dives, clocks or missing video replay.

That, to me, seems to be a problem of referee training and briefing. FIFA apparently wants the referees to be as pedantic as they are. That should be addressed first and foremost, not exotic rule changes.

I’m all for extensively and carefully testing everything that was proposed – exact time keeping, two referees on the field, video replay, no more offside, you name it – and I really think FIFA should get more aggressive about it, but they should also be very careful about not changing the game. That has to be a long and careful process, not some ad-hoc decision.

Post reply on HN