Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.
As a former H.S. (13 yrs) soccer official, and a H.S. (39 years) and college (36 yrs) basketball officials I would love to see offsides removed from the rule book. Offsides only protects teams who play poor defense and penalizes teams who play good offense.
MTD, Sr.
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MTD,
No offense intended, but your ideas on the basketball forum carry much more weight -- and generally make more sense. While there may be arguments as to why offside (please note, no "s" -- not dealing with the pointy sport here) should be eliminated, "playing poor defense" is not a good reason. I would argue that by having the offside line, there can be more chances for scoring because if a team is pushing up, it can give the attacking team more space behind the defense for a through ball that can result in 1v1 opportunities. Offside is an extremely integral part of the game in which defenders only need to worry about "what they can see" (in front of them) so long as they are behind the ball.
If you want to change something, consider changing the size of the goal. Over the past 100 years, the size, strength, jumping ability, etc. of the players has increased incredibly. By making the goal 9 or 10 feet by 27 or 30 feet, you would make the keepers job much more challenging (if a keeper is 10 to 15% faster, stronger, better jumper, taller, etc., then adding 12 - 25% to the width and 11 - 22% to the width should put the game on par with the game in its earlier years.
By only changing the size of the goal, the game would be fundamentally the same. Teams would have more of a tendency to takes shots on a larger goal. Some spectacular shots from good distance would be more common (ESPN highlight worthy). Teams would be less apt to bunker in because a 0-0 result would be much less likely. Once a game becomes 1-0, it tends to open up much more because the opponents now need an equalizer.
Just a thought....