How the mighty are fallen

[MajGenl.Meade]

What has running a sprint to do with comparing methods of deciding draws (ties) in two different football games? You have no point.

Just as LR has no point in declaring that reducing games to highlights alone to fill two minutes of airtime means they all fill two minutes of airtime.

[Long Run]

I understand his point. Your argument is that in soccer, they have to stop playing the game at some point because the athletes get too exhausted, and therefore, penalty kicks is the least imperfect way to break a tie game. You argue, wrongly, that the 11 minutes of live action on the American football field, leaves the athletes with plenty of energy to carry on into overtime. Bolt the sprinter, to a much greater extent than the American football players (and pretty much any other sport), engages in his activity a limited amount of time. And yet, sprinters do indeed get tired running heats, quarters, semis and finals. If they did not space those out, we would see much slower times in the finals of those events. The point being, that even among athletes who compete for the least amount of time, there is a fatigue factor if they are asked to do more than their normal event.

The mistaken assumptions in your argument are: 1) the greater time that the ball is "live" means that there is more "action", when it has been demonstrated that soccer players obviously do not engage in 90 minutes of action, any more than American footballers engage in 60 minutes of action; and 2) that the more time an athlete spends moving and the more mileage an athlete covers defines how difficult the sport is to continue into overtime.

[rubato]

What has running a sprint to do with comparing methods of deciding draws (ties) in two different football games? You have no point.

Just as LR has no point in declaring that reducing games to highlights alone to fill two minutes of airtime means they all fill two minutes of airtime.

What does comparing the playing time have to do with comparing sports?

You wrote this:

As previously stated, NFL teams actually play the game for an average of 11 minutes and some seconds. They spend the rest of 3 hours walking about, huddling, mugging for cameras, sitting down and er... not playing at all. It's hardly surprising that they could play "extra time" which probably amounts to another 48 seconds of actual action.

Usain Bolt spends hours walking around and doing shit-all in the Olympics with less than 10 seconds of actual action at a time.

Get over yourself. It was a dumb objection.




yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

I was rethinking rubato's message. The conclusion is that he supports the obvious understanding that Usain Bolt (along with all other 100m sprinters) takes part in his contest for the duration of the contest - he doesn't sit down for 11/60 of the time and meander to the finish line.

It is ridiculous to compare real football to a game which:
. only involves 11 minutes of action
. nominally has the offense play for 5.5 minutes and the defense for 5.5 minutes (note: exception for the Browns' offense 5.5 secs)
. regularly changes 5 offensive players during that 5.5 minutes, bringing in fresh ones and giving the others more rest
. regularly changes 5 or more defensive players during their 5.5 minutes, bringing in fresh ones and giving others even more rest

Excuses aside, it is clear that a team of 53 players, platooning in and out for 11 (eleven) minutes, are manifestly more capable of playing until the cows come home to resolve a tie.

The issue was and still is: penalty kicks in real football are not a silly method of determining a winner in a knock-out contest. Recognizing that in most domestic knock-out cup contests, a draw (tie) at the end of one game plus 30 mins extra time goes to a replay some days later when it can be scheduled. Only at the end of that second 90+30 are penalty kicks used to decide who moves on.

In the World Cup knock-out stages, there is no time to schedule replays (although a rested team would probably be happy to play against the winner of a replay just a day or two before!) AND the maximum of 14 players who may have been involved for all/parts of the 120 mins played are, believe it or not, extremely fatigued - further extra time is unedifying.

Regardless, penalties are part of the game of real football. The team participates in the resolution.

Given the fetish that US Americans have with "points" and "scoring", one would think a succession of 12 penalty kicks (6 each) to possibly determine the outcome would be positively orgasmic for y'all.

[MajGenl.Meade]

What does comparing the playing time have to do with comparing sports?

In soccer they are running around doing fuck-all of any import for most of 90 minutes. You have no point.
yrs,
rubato

Well at least your ignorance is consistent.

[rubato]

Your comment has been proven wholly without merit and stupid.

It makes no difference if American Football only involves 11 minutes of action just as it makes no difference if Usain bolt only produces 9+ seconds of action at a time.

Marathon runners actually run for 2+ hours of continuous physical exertion but we still don't want to watch the whole thing.

The Ironman competition takes even longer and with less interest in paying attention the whole time.

yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

All of which has nothing whatsoever to do with the issue of taking penalties

[Long Run]

Regardless, penalties are part of the game of real football. The team participates in the resolution.

Which, of course, is part of the whole problem. A major appeal of the game is the high premium for scoring just a single goal, it takes so much team work, execution and good luck. Then what does soccer do? Let some offensive player do a good acting job that he got fouled, and he gets a close-up, one on one shot on goal where the goalie has to be lucky to have a chance to block it. (Almost as nonsensical a rule as the normal pass interference call in the NFL that can result in penalties of 40 or more yards). Yes, I get in both instances there are egregious fouls where that should be the result, but the majority of penalty kicks that are called should be indirects since the penalty is far beyond the seriousness of the foul.

[MajGenl.Meade]

You misunderstand. The discussion is about taking penalty kicks as a method of resolving a tie - after the game is over. Each team gets 6 attempts. That usually does it. There was one game in England that went 13-14 on penalties.. Liverpool maybe?

On the subject of penalty kicks awarded during the game.... I take it that you don't watch much real football - perhaps just the MSL here in the USA? You should get BEIN, Fox soccer network and FoxSport1. Then you could see English, Spanish, Italian, French premier leagues plus the English Championship, Scottish league, the League Cup, the FA Cup, UEFA Champions league and UEFA Europa league.

A penalty kick is only awarded for offenses in the penalty area. If a defensive player (other than the goalie of course) uses any part of his hand or arm to block or deflect the ball with intent to do so - that is a direct free kick from the penalty spot. Penalties are not awarded for acting jobs. A defensive player committing a foul in the penalty area that would warrant a direct free kick anywhere else on the pitch is punished by a penalty kick. Offending players may be sent off.

That some players exaggerate contact in any area of the field is not a secret. They are often booked for simulation. It is difficult to get a penalty decision from most refs. What might be called a foul anywhere else is often waved off when it should not have been.

There are too few penalties IMO. Every corner kick results in wholesale muggings by defensive players that would be halted by the proper refereeing decision.

[Gob]

What does comparing the playing time have to do with comparing sports?

In soccer they are running around doing fuck-all of any import for most of 90 minutes. You have no point.
yrs,
rubato

Well at least your ignorance is consistent.

And remarkably high quality too

[rubato]

All of which has nothing whatsoever to do with the issue of taking penalties

Changing the subject? Well that's what you0 typically do when proven wrong. I never said anything about penalty kicks; wgaf?

It has everything to do with your criticism that there is only 11 min of real action in a football game. But you appear to have abandoned that failed line of argument.


yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

Please keep up, rubato. No one claimed you said anything about penalties (or about the actual subject, for that matter).

The subject was "penalty shoot outs after a tie game plus overtime are silly". As part of his argument, Big RR pressed that soccer should resolve draws as the NFL does - by playing successive overtimes until there is a result.

My counter to that was the NFL can play successive overtimes to resolve a tie because so far they have only played 11 minutes (+5 more minutes in the first overtime, being generous). Soccer players have played 120 minutes in a tie

Added to that, the NFL has 53 players to come on/off the field and offensive players only play 5.5 minutes at the most as do defensive players (on average).

So that's the point, dear rubato. Soccer cannot play infinite overtimes. NFL can because they haven't even played a full game after three hours of it. Penalties are a reasonable resolution in soccer; kicking field goals would not be reasonable in the NFL to break ties.

[Long Run]

You misunderstand.

No, I get it, just like everyone else here who has been discussing how best to break a tie (which apparently is not everyone). We just disagree that penalty kicks are an appropriate way to break a tie.

A penalty kick is only awarded for offenses in the penalty area. If a defensive player (other than the goalie of course) uses any part of his hand or arm to block or deflect the ball with intent to do so - that is a direct free kick from the penalty spot.

Fair enough, direct penalty kicks only sometimes are the result of acting jobs, and are often called for hand balls and actual fouls against an offensive player. But my point still stands -- a direct penalty kick is grossly out of proportion to most fouls. Getting a score is very hard, but penalty kicks are awarded for everything from innocuous contact and inadvertent hand balls to egregious tackles of players with a good chance to score and blatant handballs that stop a promising attack or shot. Only the latter should get a penalty kick. Do a search of bad penalty kick calls, and wait for the avalanche of good games decided by marginal and just wrong calls.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Understood. But what is your argument to support another way to break a draw in soccer (I'll agree to use that term)? If not penalties, then what? It's hard to believe you will argue for playing on and on and on because that's been mooted and refuted.

Ties occur less often the League Cup, the Champions League and Europa Cup - because all the knock-out rounds are played over 2 games, home and away. Because away goals count double (in the event of a tie), there is more often a result, even with overtime. Single elimination is not so easy.

While I've witnessed some dubious penalty calls (watching many hundreds of games), I believe you overstate the case by a large order of magnitude. Probably Youtchewb has a compilation of bad penalty calls - but then again, you can find goals not awarded that were clearly good scores. Refs are human. (But UEFA did one good thing with the goal-line technology that's been such a success).

I'll not search statistics since you've made the claim, merely cite my own experience. Must admit I don't watch the US MSL - perhaps you've seen this happen there?

[Long Run]

I made suggestions pages back, on better ways to decide how to break a tie. Better minds can take the ideas and make a better system, but generally, the likelihood of scoring has to increase. With penalty kicks, we go from goals being very hard to achieve to being very easy. There has to be something between those extremes. Pulling players off the field is one way. Another way is akin to the "Kansas Plan" for American football, e.g., offense has 5 against 4 defenders and a goalie, ball starts mid-field, offense plays until it loses the ball to defense or out of bounds, or the ball is cleared past midfield. Then the other side has its chance. Not perfect, but it is still the same game with teamwork, full play, etc. and a much better chance that there will be a score without making it the equivalent of kicking field goals or shooting free throws to decide.

[MajGenl.Meade]

OK; gotcha. I just wouldn't want to watch that which is a good job because it will never happen.

[Long Run]

I know I'm dancing on the head of a pin. That describes a goodly portion of the posts here, though.

[Fafhrd]

Remember, American Football is based on Rugby, not soccer. It's had a hundred years to become something else, of course, so it ain't Rugby, either.

[MajGenl.Meade]

I know I'm dancing on the head of a pin. That describes a goodly portion of the posts here, though.

Get out! Surely, you're dancing on the other end and, you know it's true, a little prick never hurt anyone.

[oldr_n_wsr]

The fans don't want them to play more.

Are these the same fans who watch cricket for days on end?

I used to have season tickets to the NY Arrows of the indoor soccer league when they played at the Nassau Coliseum.

IMHO it was a much better game indoors than outdoors (which I also attended at Giants stadium when the Cosmos were around).