Rule changes for soccer, part 3: penalty kicks and the penalty area

So, now that the advantage rule is history, we delve into the more controversial realm. I decided that instead of going in order of ease of correction I'd just wait until I see things in real games that really tick me off and write about them in the order that they arrive. [Spoiler alert for the Liverpool-Arsenal game] The next problem is the size of the penalty area and the awarding of penalties.

A penalty kick is awarded to an attacking team any time a defending team commits any foul in its own penalty area. This rule is supposed to make teams defend much more carefully inside their own penalty areas, because they don't want to give away silly fouls that will lead to goals. Unfortunately, it too often has the opposite effect, because referees are often wary of awarding penalties for minor fouls when there is no goal-scoring opportunity. Referees are also forced to award penalties in situations where the laws call for one, but in truth the attacking team wasn't anywhere near scoring.

In the Liverpool-Arsenal match Sunday Steven Gerrard was tripped quite clearly by William Gallas (third minute of video), but no penalty was called. It was an obvious, blatant foul (and I'm an Arsenal supporter), but the reason the referee didn't point to the spot is because Gerrard had lost control of the ball, as the announcer says in the video, and Thomas Vermaelen, Arsenal's other center-half points out here. The referee only has two choices, and both seem unjust: award a penalty for a clear foul on a play where the attacking player had already lost control of the ball, gift Liverpool an undeserved goal in a game where goals are few and far between. Howard Webb chose the second in this case (though I'm sure he wouldn't admit such a calculation).

Anywhere else on the field there's no assumption that you can trip someone who's trying to run past you--that only ever applies in the penalty area. In this case, the call was actually horrendous, but it's common for referees to have a higher threshold for fouling inside the penalty area (see the jostling in corner kicks and free kicks and the obvious advantage given to the defending team), and that encourages exactly the kind of defending that penalties are supposed to discourage.

Nevertheless, in a game with so few goals, is it right to give one team a free one for a mistimed tackle or an unintentional handball [at least as that rule is currently interpreted] when there was no chance of a goal from the run of play?

I can imagine two solutions. One is to allow referees the judgment to call penalties only for clear-goalscoring opportunties, and award normal free kicks from some specified distance for other fouls in the penalty area. Too subjective? Not necessarily. Referees already have to make the "goal-scoring opportunity" judgment in sending-off players.

The other is to halve the size of the penalty area (or something like that), making it 12*32 instead of 18*44 yards. [credit to Eli for this idea, but I have to say I like the former better.] Thoughts?

Rule changes for soccer, part 2: the advantage rule

The advantage rule should be modified to more closely resemble the one used in hockey. This change is so glaringly obvious I can’t believe it hasn’t been officially adopted yet. Currently, the advantage rule actually provides a positive incentive to foul in many instances, whereas, a priori, the laws of the game should be designed such that punishments for infringements are sufficient to overcome that incentive. These instances occur most commonly when an opponent makes a pass a sufficient distance—say 40 yards or more—from a defending player’s goal. If the defending player is close enough to the player making the pass and thinks the pass will be successful, he has a clear incentive to commit a foul. As long as his foul is not blatant enough to warrant a yellow card, the maximum punishment is a free kick far from his own goal. But, assuming the advantage is played, the benefit to fouling is to disrupt the player who just made the pass and eliminate him from attacking play, and, more generally, to get a chance to kick an opponent, annoy him, or possibly incite a retaliation, all without fear of further punishment. What should happen in this instance is to “play the advantage” for the duration of possession, and then award the original free kick once the advantage is lost, no matter how long its duration. The advantage rule as it currently stands is a detriment to attacking and encourages excessive and disruptive fouling. Why hasn’t it been changed?

Rule changes for soccer? part 1

The rules of soccer, or “laws of the game,” are elegant, simple, and incredible. There are lots of ways you could set up a game where two teams kick a single ball toward opposite goals, but the way soccer is structured is a big reason it became and continues to be the “beautiful game.” The rules have served us very well over the years with only a few modifications, but they go largely unexamined. I think a few more changes might be in order.

Let's back up a little first. In soccer, there’s a perennial battle between “purists” and “realists” that takes on a distinctly moral character. I could describe it at length (more here!), but it basically boils down to this: sometimes, lots of the time, the team that plays “the best soccer” doesn't win. Purists simultaneously support those teams and want them to win while also wanting all teams to play more “attractive” soccer regardless of whether it helps their results. Realists think that winning is more important than any individual strategy and are willing to embrace a variety of tactics as means to that end.

But wait: isn’t “the best soccer” by definition the manner of playing that makes a team more likely to win? Yes and no. There are two reasons that what we call “good soccer” doesn’t always lead a team to victory. One is statistical, an artifact of soccer’s low-scoring-ness. Even though one team may be considerably better than another, it might only beat the other one 51% of the time because there are so few goals. The other reason is that the rules weren’t written to make playing in the most aesthetically pleasing way consistent with the most successful strategies and tactics.** I am acutely aware of this latter reason, often after watching a team like Barcelona lose a game: they played so well, it can’t possibly be their fault, so it must be soccer’s. [The second reason is admittedly related to the first insofar as the number of goals scored is related to way the game is set up, but they are still different in other ways.]

On the one hand, I really like this conflict, simply for providing an extra moral metaphor through which to view and play the game. Sports are full of moral metaphors that make for compelling viewing already, generally about your home team and its superiority to others. In soccer, there’s this extra dimension. You may never hear soccer commentators talk outright about the conflict I’ve described above, but they comment consistently and forcefully about which team “deserves” to score or win, and it’s the same idea. Even people who don’t fall squarely into one of the two opposing camps (as most don’t) feel the conflict, and it contributes to soccer’s popularity.

On the other hand, as a purist it gives me pretty constant anxiety about the direction soccer is going in when teams like Chelsea 2008, Greece 2004, Italy 2006, etc. have so much success.

Anyway, the rules and customs of soccer have obviously withstood the test of time, and therefore any changes I advocate are on the conservative and incremental side. Here are the things I think could use some tinkering, in ascending order of difficulty of implementation/problematic nature of proposed change. I’ll discuss them each in turn, and would love to hear other proposals along the way.

The advantage rule

Free kick placement

Persistent team fouling

Red card sendings off

Yellow cards for professional fouls

Penalty area size and penalty kicks

Wall distance

Offsides (not the rule, but enforcement thereof)

Handballs

Goal size

**Most of what we come to appreciate in athletes is defined, ad hoc, by the things they manage to do that further their aims of winning. While that’s true also in soccer, there is a great deal that we appreciate in soccer players that is only loosely related to winning. While this isn't true only of soccer, I think the extent to which it is true is unique to it.

Henry under investigation??

Really?

Thierry Henry, who helped France to the World Cup courtesy of an extra-time forearm trap before a pass to goal-scorer William Gallas, might be fined or suspended? This is just like the Eduardo controversy from earlier this year, and it's absurd. For some reason the footballing authorities seem to think it's reasonable to hand out retroactive punishments that are harsher than the punishments that would have been given at the time.

If the referee had caught Eduardo's dive instead of calling a penalty, Eduardo would have been booked instead of being suspended for two games (the suspension was later overturned on appeal for other reasons). If the refs had spotted Henry's handball, he would have been booked and Ireland would have had a free kick in their own penalty area. Now Henry might be punished for the referees' mistake? Unfortunately, there's just no appropriate remedy. He made a mistake. Players handle the ball all the time, with varying degrees of intention. Henry's was hardly premeditated. It's too late to punish him for it.

World Cup draw, cont...

Maybe I was a little pessimistic about the US's prospects in my post last night. Turns out Slovenia got lucky against better Russian team, as did Algeria against Egypt, to make it to the finals. But some writers seem to think our coming in second to England is a foregone conclusion (for instance here and here) I suspect they watched the Confederations Cup, but not much of CONCACAF qualifying. The US team can play reasonably well and beat good teams with a lot of luck, but they also play awfully and lose to bad teams with alarming regularity. Aside from Donovan and Dempsey, and Torres (who might never play), we're not a talented team technically. And without the injured Davies, we'll be weak up front. Bornstein is not an international caliber left back. So while we will probably be the second best team in the group, we're still gonna need some breaks.

World Cup draw

The World Cup draw happened! World Cup fever builds…

Real soccer (hereafter, football) fans (hereafter, supporters) know that the best football is played at the club level in Europe. The World Cup can be such a disappointing and, above all, odd tournament (e.g. 2002 and 2006). Because of the elimination format, it often produces a winner that isn’t really the best team (theoretically, a team could win the tournament by tying every single game).

Nevertheless, it’s hard to deny the incredible awesomeness of the World Cup as an event. The whole world comes together for a mere month every four years (except for people in the USA and India) in recognition of the beautiful game. I can always hope for a great tournament in advance, right? Go USA (and Spain!!!)

It’s notoriously difficult/impossible to predict which teams will perform well, especially when I only saw a handful of qualifying games and friendlies in CONCACAF, Europe, Asia and South America, but here are my thoughts on the draw, which you can see here.

Spain and Brazil will end up on opposite sides of the draw if they both win their groups, setting up a potential dream final for the neutral observer. We all know how Spain will play (attack, attack, attack), but one can only hope Brazil decide to actually attack; it’s always a toss-up with them. They did in 2002, but in 2006 they set up defensively, and it was painful to watch.

Easy groups: A, C, F and H. We (the US) got a kind draw, but I’d be ecstatic if we made it to the knock-out stage. England, for once, should be a quality side. I haven’t seen the other two teams play, but Slovenia eliminated a very talented Russian team. Sad as it is to admit, that country of fewer than 3 million people may well be be better technically than we are.

Group G is the toughest: Ivory Coast, the most talented African nation, will probably fail to advance. But they could easily upset Brazil or Portugal.

Italy, even if they’re poor, should as usual find a way to squeak through.

Spain, without a real test in the first round, might not be ready for their knockout stage game against Brazil, Portugal or Ivory Coast. That would be really disappointing.

More thoughts later!