Photo by adem80 via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Yada. Yada. Yada. There are those who think that soccer is an amazing game for watching on television. But for the other 95.7% of Americans I have five ideas for making it more palatable to the American market.
- Make goals worth 7 points. We get that. A game that ends in 1-0 seems pointless. But a game that is 7-0 seems like a defensive battle. But not nearly as good as a 42-35 throw down.
- Every time a team scores a goal, they lose a player. With fewer players on the better teams that gives the poorer teams the chance to score more often. That means that the more goals that are scored, the fewer players on the field, and more opportunities to score. Another alternative would be to substitute a small child for a player each time a team scores a goal. About 6 years old seems right.
- Add a little hill near the middle line and get rid of the offsides rule. Make the hill reasonable… but it’s important that there is a sightline issue so that a hidden forward can lay low enough to cherry pick for an easy shot on goal.
- If a game goes to overtime add an additional ball every five minutes. I don’t mind the idea of playing an extra period. I just don’t want to watch a bunch of tired guys pass it around and wait for a shootout. If it’s still tied inside of 5 minutes in overtime, both managers get to play too.
- Eliminate the red card and substitute in a penalty box. All of the weenie flopping is hard to stomach. If there’s a hard foul, give the offender a 5 minute timeout. Americans love the aggressiveness of hockey. But the acting on display at the World Cup reminded us of a soap opera.
These are my ideas for making soccer more interesting.
What are yours?
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