THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: ABOLISH OFFSIDES

the offsides rule seems contrary to the sprit of the game imho, i dont really know anything abt footie per say but looking around online a lot of the speculation as to what waht would happen were a game to be played w/out this one weird rule doesnt pass the smell test, heapings of obvious status quo bias, praise of all things a well executed offsides trap which is like the #1 argument against the rule in the first place, people saying itd just be school yard soccer w/tons of long breakaways and a million goals a game assuming that defensive tactics wouldnt change at all, obvs itd have a huge effect on the game but exactly what that would look like isnt necessarily obvious, im surprised some lesser league hasnt given it a shot, just for a larf

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/mar/03/sepp-blatter-bin-offside-rule

offsides are extremely important when players get tired imo

offsides is already outlawed iirc

― Al S. Burr! (k3vin k.), Sunday, July 29, 2012 12:04 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the concept of offsides isnt outlawed

offsides are extremely important when players get tired imo

― moullet, Sunday, July 29, 2012 12:08 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

only allowing two substitutions a game is also kinda curious imho

eh?

three

I feel like 'but players will get tired' arguments are lame, endurance is a part of sports, this is also why there should be no penalty kicks / weird overtime in any sport, and players should just play til they drop

the quality of play drops so dramatically at the end of games and especially overtime, its really like why have this inferior product when youve got all these dudes just sitting there, in basketball you can do infinity substitutions

but anyway back to abolishing offsides, would it produce more goals, would soccer be better w/more goals

0-0 ties are kinda lame, would anyone be upset if there were fewer of those

nah, i think the difficulty of scoring is one of the things that makes a football goal a treat, sports where both teams rack up big scores have other pleasures but the act of scoring itself is diminished in them imo

yeah but lets say scoring increased by 25% would that really ruin that aspect

it'd probably produce some more goals, but ugly ones and as part of what's nevertheless a generally much more defensive game.

was watching some handball yesterday in the Olympics and it was just "run up one end, throw ball in net, run down other end, shot hits keeper and misses, run down first end and so on and so on", all the goals were mundane and boring to the untrained eye

whats the ideal average score of a game

it'd probably produce some more goals, but ugly ones and as part of what's nevertheless a generally much more defensive game.

― Merdeyeux, Sunday, July 29, 2012 12:23 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

im curious what the assumption is that itd produce ugly goals is

my ideal score is 1-0 but i'm a purist

fwiw i dont think generally scoring a lot or scoring a little has anything to do w/the enjoyment of a game, each game prob has its own ideal average score, like baseball gets tedious if its too high scoring but also is kinda boring if its too low scoring, they score tons of points in basketball and its the best, cricket is wildly popular in much of the world and they rack up huge numbers of runs, low scoring may be key to soccer in particular, but generally i dont think any such rule applies, i mean no one likes team handball its prob got problems beside the high scoring

tbh the tactical changes that'd result are hard to imagine (but i think it'd necessitate the defensive players being more defence-minded and goal-hanging at all times, as the attacking players would be free to be more attack-minded and goal-hanging at all times), but my feeling is that many more goals would come from errors and luck rather than sharp breakaways and cleverly picking your way through the defence and such.

not necessarily ugly goals but ugly games i think, the idea is that offside creates the necessity to play more intricate football in order to get into goal-scoring positions. games like basketball or ice hockey don't need offside because it's so much quicker and easier to go from defence to attack, the extra size and players on a football pitch means the ball spends a lot more time in the middle of the park. it's true to say plenty of people find this boring but they shd go and watch some other sport ;-)

you're quite right tho it isn't the number of points that makes a game "work" it is something more subtle about the rhythm of the game.

i think itd def open up the middle of the field, which would cause there to be less of the game played there, and fwiw my objection to offsides isnt that it causes the score to be too low, or that theres too much intermediate play, its that it seems like a weird punitive rules to an otherwise natural and free flowing game, but i dont really know anything abt the game, so im curious to see what other have to say

i'm trying to think how i would adjust strategy to take advantage of no offside. i mean, would you sacrifice a player from the rest of the pitch to have him constantly in the keeper's face?

fwiw soccer used to be higher scoring not that long ago right and people liked it, in basketball the game had gotten more and more defensive over time and they recently removed a rule illegal defense that had been around forever that was kinda simliar to offsides and it for sure improved the game even tho people had argued forever that it was essential

i suspect one of the big changes is that defenders would just have to be more cognizant of playing behind their men, prob have to back up a lil

wd create a new striker position, goalkeepers tormentor (GT)

just some rly annoying guy talking trash about the goalie's momma and then punt gollllllllllll and then he doesn't go anywhere bc his job is to torment the goalkeeper so he just chews his nails and sits them at the goalie's feet

spits

i guess if in general defenders are forced to play deeper without the protection of offside then that is going to tend towards slower games, more football in the middle of the park or more long balls, and probably less scoring.

the big question seems to me is would it be effective to just send a bunch of guys into the box and boot it up there

ice hockey does have offsides btw, although it is not quite the same as in football

it would be worth considering having a giant nose tackle built player, even more emphasis on fat over muscle, and just having him get in the keeper's way constantly

i have always kind of hated offside but thanks to this thought experiment i am finally coming round to it

i dont watch hockey but when i was searching for infos on abolishing football offsides i read something i think abt them doing away w/it in international hockey

haha xp

i kinda think MLS should abolish offsides and change some other rules because thatd be an awesome disrespectful american thing to do, and i mean why not before you just have another second rate league, now you have a crazy second rate league thats a laboratory for the rest of the world and everyone has opinons abt it

joe, prophet of d∞m

MLS is doing ok for a teenaged soccer league

#footieconcepts

who is futbol's Jeff van gundy

ya i watched an mls game the other day an i was impressed w/the enthusiasm and number of fans, but i still think itd be better if it went crazy

btw why is the olympics 23 and under expect 3 guys, thats really strange

compromise to amateurism of olympics while still trying to have some ppl who can play soccer

but none of the other sports do that

nba is considering it

football is easily the best sport in the world, doesnt need rule changes

this is pathetic btw:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJEnwi7otu0

ya IMO that's fucking dumb
didn't you gits learn anything about THE DREM TEAM

i kinda think MLS should abolish offsides and change some other rules because thatd be an awesome disrespectful american thing to do, and i mean why not before you just have another second rate league, now you have a crazy second rate league thats a laboratory for the rest of the world and everyone has opinons abt it

― lag∞n, Sunday, July 29, 2012 12:47 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i like this

if it were the full teams it might draw too much attention away from the other stuff

Lj you know the primary commentators for American streams are all Britishers right

LJ you know all English-speaking commentators are fucking awful right

lj u know the offsides rule is completely contrary to the spirit of the game right

just wait until the US picks up the 2022 tournament on the rebound, i'm sure Sepp will let you do whatever you want to the laws

admit it wld be cool if mls changed the rule just to see right, to test it out

i wd be okay if you ran this experiment alongside a proper World Cup just so's we didn't miss out

they score tons of points in basketball and its the best

lol

fact

imo a klaxon should sound at randomly timed points to turn the offside rule on and off.

fuck it, apply that to all rules why not.

immediate video ref much more u&k a change needed IMO, and refs to be interviewed after each game upon request

yah if any sport needs to be able to review calls is soccer cause of how much individual calls can affect the outcome of the game

It would be cool if they installed like 100 cameras in the stadium and used computers to determine whether somebody was offsides or not

Like we can superimpose a down line in American football and we've been doing that for like 20 years at least

Use computers to play soccer, that's my platform

http://thefunambulistdotnet.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/barricade-paris-1945.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/3pENrUe.gif

Obama coming in from the left

thinkin bout this again

its wild that soccers is the most popular sport with all the fucked up shit that goes on

prob mostly due to the fact there are no stoppages of play due to tv commercials which tbf is amazing

football is already a broken fake spectacle beholden to tv companies just like all the other professional sports, you can let it go now bud

trying to work out if it was a united game that first inspired this thread too lol

seemingly not. olympics maybe

i dont remember lol fwiw i do not "support" man u, i just hate to see a goal nullified by offsides

the only thing from the game just now that needs to be abolished is peter drury

offsides to the mm dont work under var, even when the player is actually offside (todays wasnt)

why wont any league abolish offsides cmon america has multiple ones now cant a shitty one just give it a try, i need to see it, it bothers me the way america is adopting soccer just larping shit from tv wearing the scarves calling the teams fc being unreasonably attached to the offsides rule, mortifying

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/sep/04/swedish-club-contact-ifab-after-finding-loophole-in-offside-law

Funny vid, but if you tried that in a real game someone would just kick the ball off your foot before you got the chance to kick it.

Per OP 11 years ago, think they've tried getting rid of offside many times and you just get all the strikers hanging around the box with the midfielders hoofing the ball in their direction. If that's what you want to see then fair enough.

i am pro the offside rule bcz it is the brainchild of J. C. THRING

literally this guy's dad lol

https://i0.wp.com/www.rob-gregory.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Gabbitas-and-Thring-Cropped.jpg

Per OP 11 years ago, think they've tried getting rid of offside many times and you just get all the strikers hanging around the box with the midfielders hoofing the ball in their direction. If that's what you want to see then fair enough.

― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Tuesday, September 5, 2023 2:33 PM (forty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

theyve never tried getting rid off offsides, at least not over a long enough stretch to let real strategy evolve, and i suspect just kicking it into the box wouldnt be where it would land, tho it would def stretch the field so to speak

they have to start bringing it back to the original intent

this millimetre centimetre bullshit is destroying the game trevor

xp yeah it's only ever been trialled in lower leagues, sure it wouldn't be quite the same over a period of time in the premiership, but it would still change the game fundamentally, there would be much less movement.

would agree completely that it's much, much too strict and applied too pedantically these days.

I mean they could always go back to the old rule where even being even is offside.

That will not at all fix the obsession with frame by frame advance but if ur a fan of offside calls boy would u be thrilled

The line drawing is nonsense. If we must have var then they should show the var people a freeze frame of the moment the pass is made and the attacker and last defender, if they can't tell from that picture if the player is offside or not then the goal stands. Mostly they won't be able to tell and we'll be back to the pre var days of level is onside advantage to the attacker

What they should do is just play the entire match, no VAR at all, then after the match they VAR the whole thing and tell you what the official final score is

People always say "you will have a problem with this until it's your team benefitting from it" and it's like "well sure if we're gonna be fucked by it it's only fair we have some go out way too" but that doesn't mean I enjoy it.

Getting bailed out by VAR for something like that always cheapens victories for me as a fan and ruins the viewing experience even more as a neutral spectator.

I don't mind VAR for PKs and red card offenses but even then they shouldn't be allowed to frame by frame

Do they do this at non-sports jobs?

"You are appealing being fired for smoking on company grounds. We reviewed the security footage with an independent auditor and on frame by frame advance you can see your left foot was inside company grounds.

Your termination is upheld

it's still mad shit that Dixie Dean managed to score 60 goals in 39 games in the offside rule era.

What they should do is just play the entire match, no VAR at all, then after the match they VAR the whole thing and tell you what the official final score is

― Dinglebert Humperstink (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 5 September 2023 21:49 (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

love this tbh

the thing is

weve seen absolutely bullshit calls under var since the start, from deciding not to review to deciding not to call the ref over to the ref deciding not to change decision

weve seen clearly offside players and lines that are almost comicallydrawn to get the goal to stand, handballs that were never handballs before and blatant handballs not called

not to turn it partisan but the same clubs get calls from cunt refs and the only thing var has changed is that its more of a disgrace

junk it altogether at this stage

yes so many wrong decisions but the main problem for me is that they started from the assumption that the more 'correct' decisions you get per match no matter what that does to the flow of the game the 'better' it is for the sport. var has made watching football worse imo.

to go back to the original post about scrapping offside my answer would be no because one of the most thrilling things in football is the perfectly timed run/pass to beat offside and leave a one-on-one with the goalie and if you don't enjoy that then maybe football isn't the sport for you.

maybe its not for you

p sure it is but you do you

maybe that expression isnt for you