From: mlindroos@abo.fi
Subject: Re: Soccer in Barcelona 92 & New Rules
Organization: Abo Akademi University, Finland
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 11:58:21 GMT

In article <1992Aug14.085012.2529@syma.sussex.ac.uk>, mppu3@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Conor McMenamin) writes:
> mlindroos@abo.fi writes:
> : Those Americans everyone seems to be so concerned about will have no trouble at
> : all if the average score turns out to be 1-0 again. Their own baseball (five
> : runs per game) and American Football (six touchdowns per game in the NFL) are
> : not necessarily more "open" than soccer in this respect. What NO ONE should
> : be forced to put up with is the time wasting trash only soccer seems to accept
> : as a "natural part" of the game.
> 
> 	Only football? Do we live on a different planet?

No. Look at other sports and you'll realize I'm right. Timewasting does occur
everywere but is pretty much limited to the last seconds of a game. Soccer
is drastically different - sometimes teams start "playing for the draw" up to
fifteen minutes for time while other matches are negative from the opening
whistle. You never see this anywhere (OK, North American sports)
else. And yet soccer, IMO, is "better"
than the sports I mentioned. It's such a shame to put off the fans by having
unnecessary crap that does not belong on the field at all. 
 
> :                                  Basketball has its shot clock, hockey states
> : that the puck must be kept in motion, American Football demands that the ball
> : be brought back in play within 30 seconds etc..
> 
> 	Not exactly an internationalist are you? All these sports seem
> to have a heavy American influence either in terms of world domination
> or in being the only suckers who play it...there are many sports where
> time is lost from the game as a matter of course; examples include
> (field [puke]) hockey, rugby union (not exactly a worldwide one this,

Well . . . hope I am not offending you, but in terms of TV exposure, amount of
money involved, "order of importance" etc. there are only five "real" team
sports - soccer and the four North American pro sports. Rugby and field hockey
are amateur sports (OK, rugby league, which [I have been told] isn't much of
anything). Volleyball and team handball might be popular (especially the
former) but can best be described as semiprofessional sports. Cricket...?
The Yanks spend, buy, sell, produce and consume about half of everything -
including sports. This is why FIFA is so anxious to enter the American
scene.

> but they do play it in the US of A!) etc. Also in at least two of the
> sports mentioned above (I'm an ignoramus on baseball!) they have 'Time
> outs', when the whole game stops and all the players go off for a chat
> with their coach and a bit of a rest, in American Football the game is
> regularly delayed by the teams being changed....I have heard that
> gridiron games will often take 3 hours to finish one hour of playing
> time. Isn't this just an example of organised 'time wasting'? Just
> because it's part of the rules doesn't make it great to watch!

Wrong. The important difference is that NO playing time is lost no matter
how many time outs the coaches call (and I agree, timeouts would be bad for 
soccer as it disrupts the natural flow of the game). The clock is suspended 
while the coach instructs his players and the TV stations is showing 
commercials:-) It's not at all like soccer, where faking injuries etc. can be 
very effective. In basketball, the
clock is just turned off until the ball is put back in play again. What's wrong
about that? Sorry, I forgot that only American/Canadian sports use this method
for timekeeping so I guess it isn't "good" enough for the British. . .
 
> : Preventing goalies from using their hands on backpasses was a good start.
> 
> Couldn't agree more. Despite the chances of unlikely loopholes etc. it's
> a step in the right direction.
> 
> : Too bad FIFA didn't ban all backpasses from outside the penalty area, like
> : team handball does.
> 
> Erm, how exactly do you distinguish between the backpasses that have
> already been banned and 'backpasses from outside the penalty area'? It
> seems to me that backpasses from outside the penalty area is a subset of
> backpasses in general, so banning the latter bans the former-or have I
> missed something?

I don't see your point. As I see it, a defender can still pass back the ball
from anywhere as long as the goalie does not touch the ball with his hands.
OK, I have to admit that the "no hands" rule should be effective enough.

> :                     That would be my next step, 
> Which is why you're not on any FIFA body, presumably. You'd only confuse
> them, the poor old blighters. {By the way, this doesn't refer to the USA
> in general before I get some racist tarwiththesamebrush etcetc flame:-}
> :                                                 and any player who tries to 
> : get around it by ballooning the ball into the stands gets booked.
> 
> Oh dear. LARGE amounts of confusion here. How is 'ballooning the ball
> into the stands' in any way equivalent to a backpass? With a backpass you
> retained possesion, by kicking the ball out of play you lose it. Hardly
> getting round it, is it? Or have I missed something here as well? Any
> player who thinks he's getting round it by kicking the ball out of play
> wants to spend some time in an institution, not just get a yellow card!

They aren't related in any way! If you remember, the standard conservative
criticism of the new backpass rule is that players under pressure will kick
the ball as far away as possible unless they can give it to the goalie -
leading to even more timewasting if it leaves the field of play. Fortunately,
it appears that people were wrong as nobody tried to do this in the Olympics or
the U21(?) World Cup. But if it does turn out to be a problem, any player doing
so should be cautioned or even sent off.
 
> :                                                                   Also, the
> : goalie should not be allowed to block or hold the ball with his hands for 
> : more than approx. one second (like in ice hockey). If he does, the other team 
> : gets a lateral throw-in from the sidelines.
> 
> 	Great rule this is! That would be fun, just cluster 5
> men round the keeper and cross it to him. Then wait a second for him to
> try to play the ball and away you go. Anyone remember what Bestie did to
> Gordon Banks? It'd be the new craze! And how do you mean 'block' the
> ball? If the keeper blocks the ball it usually falls on the ground, kind
> of precluding any more blocking being necessary until someone else plays
> the ball.

No, dear. If the goalie is closely guarded by the other team's forwards, he
will of course block it (i.e., grab the ball with his hands or cover it with
his body) so that no one will be able to play the ball. Just like before, 
but the prize
to pay will now be a lateral throw-in from the sidelines for the other team. 
If the attacking side manages to force the goalie to do his best, it ought to
be worth something.
 
> 
> :                                                        The first thing is
> : to stop the clock every time the ball is not in play (injuries, corners, goal-
> : kicks, free-kicks, throw-ins etc.). Obviously, the match time would have to
> : be shorter than 90 minutes as about 40-50 minutes are normally lost due to
> : time wasting and the like.
> 
> During EC '92, they were kind enough to give us a measurement of the
> time the ball was in play. I would have said the average there was
> about 30 minutes of play per half(just by watching the games-does
> anybody know what the average actually was?), so about 30 minutes were
> lost per game. 

Yes, but this figure included the four to five minutes lost while the goalies
are wandering around with the ball in their hands, looking for an excuse not
to kick it back! A soccer match usually lasts about 50-55 mins, effective time..

> This may seem unreasonable unless you consider that the
> game then lasts for 60 minutes. I get tired enough after this length of
> time! And for any extended stoppage the clock is already stopped
> anyway, at all levels of football, so why have you included injuries

Not true. The ref. merely adds extra time - if he *feels* like doing so,
if he is young and feels like running for an additional five to ten minutes.
Too damn inconsistent! In Italia'90, some refs waited for ages before blowing
the final whistle while others added not time whatsoever no matter how much
time was lost.

> in your list? Or is it the case that you don't actually know that much
> about the rules of the game as they stand anyway? No no, I'm sorry. You
> wouldn't have wasted all that space if you didn't know the rules
> already, that would have been stupid. So I must have missed something again.
> Sorry.

As I said, *ALL* stoppages should count and the clock should be stopped anytime
the ball is not in play. To do so, the length of the match would have to be
reduced to 60 mins. effective time. 

> 
> :                            The second would be a separate 30-second 
> : clock similar to basketball's 10-second-rule. For those of you not familiar
> : with basketball, this means that as soon as the defending team gains possession
> : of the ball, they have thirty seconds to get it out of their own half of play.
> : The clock is reset every time the attacking team touches it. Simple isn't it?
> 
> Not as simple as you make out. You'd also have to ban passes back over
> the half way line, else teams could just reset the clock by passing into
> the oppo's half, then passing it back. So you do that and what do you end
> up with? Enforced 'Route One'-and ask anyone who's been to see
> Wimbledon, it's not good to watch.

Well, basketball does use that rule but I don't think soccer needs a similar
"one way" line. The soccer field is so much larger that only two REALLY 
obnoxious teams determined to have a draw (Holland vs. Ireland in Italia'90?) 
would keep the ball in their own half for 30 secs., then immediately play it 
back again while the opposition is passively watching from its half. Then
again, I should not underestimate some of the guys playing the game...
 
> 
> 	I don't claim to be a football expert, just a lover of the game.
> It is exactly this kind of drivel that draws all the whining about
> 'Americanizing' football. There are a lot of people on rss, and around
> the world, who like football pretty much the way it is. Let's just hope
> FIFA remember that there is life after '94, and that the Brazilians,
> Argentinians, British, Italians, Spanish, French, Columbians,
> Cameroonians, Koreans, ex-Yugoslavians, even a few Aussies(!) etcetc
> like football, and don't want to play some awful game that was invented
> (by FIFA-not by the USA!) to sell a sport to one country and their TV
> networks. If they want it, let them come and get it. We shouldn't bring it
> to them.

That is your opininion. If you want to get rid of timewasting and the like you
have to change the laws of the game. It's as simple as that.Most people now seem
to like the new backpass rule despite determined opposition and grim warnings
from WORLD SOCCER and the like. I claim that the "real" fans don't know what
they really want - they BELIEVE that they know what is good and bad for the
sport. We should try new rules to see what works and what doesn't. That is how
American Football, basketball and hockey do things. Why should soccer be any
different?
 
> Conor.

MARCU$