Splendid idea! Any player who rolls over more than once after being vaguely tackled is obviously suffering greatly, and should be despatched immediately to end his all too apparent suffering.
Reintroduce some form of cap on the number of foreign players on the field at any given time. Otherwise our national team has zero chance of every progressing... ever.
United also play with a depiction of the Devil on their shirts. Clearly Satan worshipers should have no place in football. But hey, maybe Van Gaal is God's punishment to the heathens
I don't know why more players don't put their hands up when they fall without a foul, whether it's a slip, or to prevent injury. I saw Rose do it once and everyone understood. "Oh, he just went down, he's not claiming anyone else is at fault." A big part of the problem is refs who for the most part will never call a penalty if someone stays upright. I've seen players get a pen-worthy foul and stay up, and everyone's reaction, understandably, is, 'Why did he stay up?' Part of the problem to me is the low tech card system. Because it takes a ref a minimum of a few seconds to get the card out of his pocket, he will always be judging the aftermath of the foul, i.e. the usually bad acting of the victim. Basketball officials blow whistles the moment they see a foul, and are supposed to make their decision in that split second, with the goal of judging the foul, not the (usually faked) aftermath. People won't act if it doesn't affect the call.
There is not a TV executive in the world who would be happy with games being of indeterminate length. hence it won't happen. Shame cos I think this sort of approach might be really exciting and at least a bit like football. Though has potential to be hugely knackering for the poor sods who are left on the pitch longest - they might not be ready for another game just three days later at a World Cup (say). Only rule changes I can think of off the top of my head are the obvious ones already mentioned: retrospective bans for diving and maybe allow the fourth official to move his/her head a few degrees so they can see the TV replays just the same as everyone else in the world. It would be nice if the officials were as well informed about the events on the pitch as the general TV-viewing public. Seems sensible to me.
Just thought of another one! Revisit the rule about professional fouls. Sometimes a mistaken tackle on the guy who's clean through just doesn't warrant a red card IMO. Body-checking someone who's away leading a break against your team is only a yellow if there happens to be another defender between him and the goal despite it being hugely cynical. For me that's a professional foul and not what the game should be about. Any deliberate foul should be red-cardable. Cos, frankly, it's always possible to not foul someone deliberately. Also wouldn't it be interesting to see what a game of football would look like without offside? Just wondering. I've had a couple of glasses of wine, mind.
Red for dives inside the penalty box. Yellow for dives outside it. Blood substitutions. If a team has already used it's three subs in a match and a player on the field gets a genuine nasty injury - I.E. having to be stretchered off/ busted head, then I think a sub should be permitted.
There are too many decisions that would take too long. Take last night for example, Debuchy's challenge looked like he got the ball from several different angles but even the ones that threw doubt on it were inconclusive as to whether he got a light touch on it, and Wilshere's as obvious as it was that they player must've been tripped, there actually wasn't much evidence of it in the replays, even if he did admit it at the end of the game. I remember everyone was calling Bale a diver after looking at the replays of a penalty he got against Scotland, because the replays didn't show the contact but after the game, Maloney apologised for making a stupid foul saying there was contact. I don't understand why people think adding in replays would lead to snap decisions after 15 seconds of replays unless they were still going to risk getting it wrong. In my opinion, if you add in technology it should be instant and near enough infallible, we already have pundits watching the same replays and disagreeing with eachother and I see no reason why video refs would be any different. Maybe it's Hot-spot we need to show contact rather than refs with replays
The version i heard had Man Utd at the end. I guess no-one cares or bothers with them any more though so i'll adopt your version.
I mostly agree YV but I don't understand the obsession by all pundits about whether someone got a touch on the ball in a tackle. The reference to touching the ball first was taken out of the Laws several years ago.
Absolutely agree with both of these Lenny. Abolishing offside would no doubt have profound affects on how the game was played but it would be interesting to see what they might be.
Your first idea brings the question of intent into play. Whichever way, you would still be left at the discretion of the officials to decide what was intentional, and what was a genuine attempt to play the ball.
I think that is fine. A lot of fouls are clearly intentional and cynical and it really annoys me when a genuine attempt to get the ball in a tackle is penalised in exactly the same way as a cynical foul.
It's been tried in experimental games. From what I remember reading, goal hanging was the name of the game.
Clearly intentional should be no problem. However, many players either make a clumsy attempt to win the ball, which may look an intentional foul. Conversely, many defenders are adept at disguising a deliberate foul as a genuine ball winning attempt.
I expect the long term change would be different once people worked out the best tactics for the new rule. Should lead to more dispersion of players on the field so more time for passing. Long balls would be less effective as no space to play them into.
