Veggamattic wrote:So I am a bit of a soccer fan...I have watched a good bit of most of the world cups since the 90's but it doesn't go much further than that. I like the sport but there are some fundamental problems with the rules that make the sport hard to respect.
The reason I don't like soccer and hockey are the same there are problems with the rules that spoil the outcome of games where often times the best team doesn't win.
Penalty kicks - If a foul takes place 1 inch inside the penalty box it is an almost certain goal, yet if that same infraction takes place 1 inch outside the box there is almost no chance of scoring. Move that penalty 10 yards outside the box and there is now a way better chance of scoring that if if was barely outside the box.
THIS IS ALL RIDICULOUS!!!!!!
If this goal was only worth a small scoring sample in a game like basketball it would be one thing and I would still hate it but because 1 goal is the average margin of victory in soccer this makes many of the game winners NOT the best team on the field and makes luck far to big a factor in the outcome.
Offsides are also odd and annoying...just the basic idea that you can't be ahead of the defender when the pass is made seems to be counter-intuitive to the way the game is played. When really young kids play do they even use this rule? I understand what it prevents but I think there has to be a better way to engineer this rule so that once again that 1 inch difference is not SO damn important to the outcome of the game.
There is also major problems with the amount of contact and grabbing that players get away with and the rules need to penalize this more but not so much that it messes up the fundamental natural of the outcomes like those other 2 rules do. Why not give penalties to remove players from the game for a few minutes like hockey does?
I also wonder why limit substitutions? It seems pointless and takes away from so many possibilities for interesting strategy moves. Again, why not do what hockey does and allow switches on the fly?
Soccer also needs higher scoring, closer to what hockey scores are, in order for it to be more likely that the better team wins and that a lucky goal is not what decides the game.
I could keep going but I think I've made my point...if you look at the 5 big sports....2 are always tweaking rules so that the game gets better...basketball and football...1 is pretty much perfect and doesn't need much change...baseball and 2 rarely change rules...soccer and hockey and tend to be very bound to tradition.
It can be very hard for some people to imagine change in what they are used to and this is where the problem rests. There are too many closed minded traditionalists that shoot down new ideas because change is too much for their cognitive dissonance to see past. Some things just make sense mathematically when it comes to creating the best rules as they do what rules are supposed to do and make sure the best team wins.
I think thats why most people love this sport. Underdog always has a chance and pivotal moment can happen any time, after a single mistake. Makes game intense the whole unless its a blowout. Where in Basketball for example, I am huge basketball fan, but its a game opf trading baskets, you can always leave basketbal game for 5-10 minutes, and you wont miss much, while 5 any random minutes in Football can decide the whole. Thats way more exciting. Football is excited that way, no matter if you better, you cant make mistakes, and yes, there is a lot of luck involved. I am not the biggest fan of the sport, but I defeinitely see the appeal, and I think its all a strength, not a weakness.