How Not to Fix Soccer

Best explanation I’ve seen on why soccer is soccer and why Americans should stop trying to fix it (e.g. make it more american). Soccer is about playing, not watching. America is about watching, which is something I think we as a society should fix, actually. I’m not a huge soccer fan, but I’ve been watching the World Cup, and I think the biggest “flaw” about soccer for most americans is that to enjoy it, you have to actually pay atttention to it. You can’t, as we are wont to do, make it background noise and turn to look at the game when the announcer indicates something interesting is going on… Fortunately, the rest of the world is really unlikely to listen to us as we make suggestions about how to fix their sport…

How Not to Fix Soccer | Freedom to Tinker:

ith the World Cup comes the quadrennial ritual in which Americans try to redesign and improve the rules of soccer. As usual, it’s a bad idea to redesign something you don’t understand—and indeed, most of the proposed changes would be harmful. What has surprised me, though, is how rarely anyone explains the rationale behind soccer’s rules. Once you understand the rationale, the rules will make a lot more sense.

 

So here’s the logic underlying soccer’s rules

 

 

 

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  • Tom Galloway

    Was thinking about this, and may have come up with another problem soccer has with Americans. Namely, it only really has one defined goal; to score a goal. And those are very rare (and all too frequently come from special cases such as penalty or corner kicks).

    Basketball is similar, but there's 2-3 scores a minute on average, and each scoring attempt is a set time period; if you don't at least attempt a shot in 24-30 seconds, the other team gets the ball.

    Baseball has intermediate goals; does the batter get on base? Does the pitcher get the batter out? Any swing of the bat could cause one of these to happen.

    Football has the first down as intermediate goals, with a real possibility of any given play resulting in one. (it also compresses its action significantly. A recent article pointed out how much telecasts love instant replay for football because there's really only about 12 minutes of action during a game. The rest is getting up, waiting for the snap, etc.)

    Soccer, the majority of the time, is just kicking the ball around in the middle of the field. Relatively few shots at a goal, and no intermediate goals like a first down or getting a batter out. Thus, it doesn't seem as interesting to folk weened on those types of games.