montster Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 now that it's over, i'm not sure if this belongs in the non-football forum yet, but oh well. pulled this from espn.com's world cup wrapup. i agree that PKs as a way to decide the game have to go. Five Suggestions To Improve The World Cup 1. Discontinue the penalty shootout. No one likes to see a game decided on penalty kicks. It's about time FIFA came up with a more imaginative way to settle ties. One suggestion: Play overtime until one team scores, but with a twist -- force the coaches to take off one player every two minutes, up to a maximum of six players. Five on five on a full-sized pitch -- at some point someone's bound to score. 2. Seed all 32 teams from top to bottom. This would at least make for some semblance of a balanced draw for the opening group stage, and would avoid situations where some teams face a "Group of Death," whereas other teams face a far easier draw. 3. Add another field referee. Given the pace of today's game and the fact that half the time key decisions are made by referees who are trailing the action by 20 to 30 yards, it's about time FIFA wised up and added another referee. Each referee would have the responsibility of one half of the field. 4. Instant replay. Even the best referees blunder when making game-turning penalty decisions. It's time to institute instant replay to analyze every penalty decision that's awarded. Instant replay should only be allowed with a caveat, though -- when the video gives conclusive evidence that the original decision was erroneous. 5. Crack down on diving and cheating. There's no real way to catch every single dive on the field, but there's been an abundance of cheating going on in this World Cup which has hurt the sport. FIFA needs to have a video panel of referees watch games after the fact and issue fines and postmatch cards for players found guilty of pure play-acting. (Thierry Henry's masterpiece dive clutching his face against Spain despite no contact would be a prime example.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ursa Majoris Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 Only #5 is worth considering. The rest have already been tried in one form or another. Does anyone else find it massively ironic that this sports station that fielded Harkes and Balboa as it's experts and had the studio panel chaired by a guy who admitted he wasn't a fan and knew nothing about the game now offers suggestions, none of them new, to alter a game the rest of the world has been playing for over 130 years? Chutzpah, anyone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godtomsatan Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 Does anyone else find it massively ironic that this sports station that fielded Harkes and Balboa as it's experts and had the studio panel chaired by a guy who admitted he wasn't a fan and knew nothing about the game now offers suggestions, none of them new, to alter a game the rest of the world has been playing for over 130 years? Chutzpah, anyone? I was going to type something more lengthy, but the answer to the first question is clearly 'NO'. I started giggling at #1. First, TV wants a definite winner and a set time-frame to schedule programming around. Now, TV wants something as weird and stupid as the all-star game determining home field advantage in the championship. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fatman Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 now that it's over, i'm not sure if this belongs in the non-football forum yet, but oh well. pulled this from espn.com's world cup wrapup. i agree that PKs as a way to decide the game have to go. I think the final was exactly the reason getting rid of PKs makes no sense - Italy was dogging it for most of overtime. Any goal that would have eventually been scored would have been more about fatigue than accomplishment by the other team. Obviously that would mean that the more fit team would win, but the quality of the game at that point would be very, very low. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtomicCEO Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 I did see the irony that SI would make suggestings to Europe about the World Cup. They barely cover soccer, and they want to tell the biggest fans in the world how to improve their sport? Diving is for pusses. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuazzL28bxc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zmanzzzz Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 concur Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pope Flick Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 A buddy of mine got back from Germany, and he told me one of the chants he heard that was anti-Brazil: 5-world-cups! 3rd-world-country! -repeat. Ouch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimC Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 I'm shocked the Huns dissed Brazil since most Nazis are still hiding out there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiegie Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 A buddy of mine got back from Germany, and he told me one of the chants he heard that was anti-Brazil: 5-world-cups! 3rd-world-country! -repeat. Ouch. not a surprise at all, many Europeans are seemingly inherently Eurocentric and think that people from developing countries (or should that be not-developing) are inferior in some way or another. (Likely this is true of America too, it's just in America, people generally don't say it outloud.) I went to graduate school with a woman from Albania. Once another woman came to our department as a visiting from Germany. When she met the first woman and learned that she was from Albania she immediately said in a pitying voice, "You must be so very very poor." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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