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Originally Posted by Nevadaref
You pose compelling idea! 
(Essentially this is how NCAA football conducts their OTs. They give each team repeated cracks from the red zone until the tie is broken.)
A completely different concept was suggested to me by a friend. You might find it interesting. He advocated reducing the number of players on the field for each team by one for each overtime period played.
For example, each team plays with 10 in the 1st OT, 9 in the 2nd, 8 in the 3rd, and 7 in the 4th. After that something else must be done, since 7 is the minimum. (Or they could just keep playing until they drop.) The idea is to open up the game and create more scoring chances.
I believe that the Laws should simply restrict where the players may go on the field during the overtime periods.
In other words legislate a power play situation for each offense.
Method 1:
"At the beginning of extra time a team must designate five field players who may not enter their defensive half of the field and three who may not leave it." Those eight plus two transition players, who may go whereever they wish, and a goalkeeper make up the full 11. This means that once a team establishes possession in the attacking half they have a 7 v. 5 (plus a keeper) advantage. That should tilt the balance enough in favor of the offense that goals will be scored. (The players will need to wear colored shirts or some other method to indicate to the officicals where they can go.)
The penalty for a player who leaves his designated area is that the opponents receive a direct free kick from the top of the arc above the penalty area.
If that system is too complicated, then...
Method 2:
Two 15 minute periods are played to completion. (or 10 or 5 for youth players)
"At the beginning of extra time the team that wins the coin flip shall choose to field either eleven players or nine players. The opponent shall have the kickoff and choice of which direction to attack. The teams shall reverse directions, kickoff, and number of players for the second extra period."
This way each team gets to play one overtime period with a two man advantage. I guess that if they are still tied after that the process could be repeated with a 4 man advantage!
Diving needs to be dealt with harshly, offside has its pluses and minuses, I don't believe that subs should be altered, except for perhaps one additional per team for games that go to extra time, fitness should be a big part of the contest. |
I like any of these solutions better than the current PK system (...okay, I'm back, just thinking about PKs made me throw up again
) All of these ideas keep the integrity of the game intact. I just like the corner kick idea because it is normal play (with the exception of the one extra attacker) and it is typically the most exciting moment in any normal 90-120 minute soccer match. But I like your ideas too.
As for what CecilOne said, "play on", I like that idea too except that some games may never end.
But in that line of thinking, I like the liberalized substitution rule because it would give players opportunity to rest during games and still be fresh at the end. Did anyone operate under any disillusion that the Italians spent the last 15-20 minutes of regulation and all of OT playing nothing but defense and waiting for PKs, assuming that was their best chance to win? That tactic, which I fully understand under the current system, nonetheless made me start pulling for France (I still feel a little dirty
). One of the things I like about European and Latin American soccer I manage to see on TV is that it is attack oriented...it's fun to watch. One of the drags watching WC is that it is far too often clog-em-up defense oriented...not as fun to watch. Love watching Brazil because they attack. If players can be subbed in-and-out, they can stay fresher and we could then go full OT until someone scores...teams would be forced to attack and play offense from time-to-time instead of the "safer" Italian approach. This concept would also reward the fitter and better coached teams because the best, fittest players would need to be there at the end.
As for offsides (and again, I'm not a soccer guy and therefore don't have loyalty to or understanding of longstanding rules), how many times during the WC, on what to me amounted to a "fast break", did the attacker get whistled because he was a step or two beyond the last line of defense. That needs to be addressed to add more tactical opportunity to the game. That's like saying if a wide receiver blows past a cornerback and gets behind the defense before the QB releases the pass, it's illegal because that would be a soccer-equivalent offsides. Just nuts...but then I played rugby so how many brain cells could I have left??
