Best/Worst American Soccer Innovation

Voted for the penalties myself

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRITqS6WEn0

Other - the weird points system from the first few years

the running clock is something they should definitely do

Unpopular opinion: given the current rules of soccer, golden goal made and makes sense (unless they seriously modify other rules in overtime)

US is a land of innovation.

Letting the ball’s inner experiences decide whether a goal is offside is a huge step forward for object-oriented ontology

— Brooks Otterlake (@i_zzzzzz) July 3, 2026

other - 3 day pause to world cup to let degenerate gamblers fill in brackets

The various 'ProZone' innovations like more points for long-range goals would I'm sure make for an absolutely atrocious sporting spectacle, but I'd nevertheless like to see them in action.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/mar/02/league-1-america-soccer-revolution-never-was

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0098b5e167f84d74a793ed4d65f84a2cf1782986/394_269_2979_1983/master/2979.jpg?width=1300&dpr=2&s=none&crop=none

instead of just being some third rate league mls should become the crazy league for adopting crazy rules lets have some fun out there guys

basically soccer’s xfl, that makes sense

get some really dumb looking uniforms

That was basically MLS in its infancy

they didnt go far enough

My most extreme and serious suggestion would be to make the soccer pitch smaller. I can almost guarantee you the average American and Canadian would like it more and it would make the game immensely harder and more technical, to the point where people like Harry Kane could never play the sport

listen we gotta have offsides reform folks

Xp all you have to do is watch an NYCFC home game to see how much this sucks. In fact, until relatively recently several MLS clubs played on smaller than regulation fields. The days of KC playing in a minor league baseball park were particularly weird.

The NYCFC thing was a travesty. Everyone smugly said "they have to play on it too" but they get a full season to adapt to it and could build their team around it (two of their biggest stars were 5'9).

Basically just pinball on grass

My most extreme and serious suggestion would be to make the soccer pitch smaller. I can almost guarantee you the average American and Canadian would like it more

This falls under the heading of worst innovations then?

That’s because that league doesn’t have very good players. It requires a lot more technique and it’s overall harder. So yeah, you’re basically saying the players suck, which we already knew that given what league it’s in. But yeah, I don’t know how willing elite players would be willing to switch to it because it would he faster paced

Dearie me

xposr

I mean it's not like MLS is full of amateur league players, the issue is that every team is top heavy due to a salary cap.

We've already seen how many superior World Cup squads struggled to move the ball through congested area against low blocking teams. Imagine training to break that down on a smaller field.

Sure, smaller = less distance to reach the goal, but when you get there it's like sharing a bath tub with the Baldwin family

The NYCFC pitch is also crooked and on a baseball diamond. That pitch is often criticized for things note solely related to pitch size, so I don't think it's a good example

It also depends what dimensions we're talking about. It doesn't necessarily need to be narrower. NYCFC's pitch is 110x70 yards and in an awkward position

A proper soccer pitch that is slightly shorter, but not necessarily narrower could work and could still give players the vertical movement they need. The bathtub example assumes it's both narrower and shorter, which is not what I'm saying

By the way, Craven Cottage is 109x71 yards and doesn't have all the problems NYCFC does

dan m - I hope you feel bad for starting this thread

If the thread was smaller it would be more entertaining.

lmao

The posters aren't skilled enough

I'm assuming lag∞n is just trolling the Europeans. I'm not sure everyone else's excuse.

it's like sharing a bath tub with the Baldwin family

― If your ass is a Bible, 213 will regulate (Neanderthal), Friday, July 3, 2026 10:06 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

???

Cristiano Ronaldo, age 67: "I am big. It's pitches that got small".

dan m - I hope you feel bad for starting this thread

― xyzzzz__, Friday, July 3, 2026 10:25 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Well I hope you feel bad for inspiring me to start it!

How about making the field BIGGER and forcing all the players to wear bubbles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7tHkeVR1Ms

that looks so fun, dan

in other words, the british ilxors/statlers would not approve!

I do think it’s funny that soccer fans are very protective of their rules and traditions. no major american sport is like that and that sort of sentiment is generally associated with chuddiness and conservatism

otm

Oh man let me tell you guys about the designated hitter rule since you don't seem to be familiar with baseball

Or how the 3v3 overtime is a favorite of all ice hockey devitees

I do think stuff I made up that isn't true is funny too.

I do think it’s funny that soccer fans are very protective of their rules and traditions. no major american sport is like that and that sort of sentiment is generally associated with chuddiness and conservatism

Yes football hasn't changed at all since 1872.

https://www.scottishsporthistory.com/uploads/3/3/6/0/3360867/498599_orig.jpg

mlb does feel like the most conservative, but kudos to them for implementing quite a bit of changes in recent times

i think fifa are just slow at implementing change and because of how global it is, there are probably more obstacles, the EPL being one of them

Or how the 3v3 overtime is a favorite of all ice hockey devitees

― underminer of twenty years of excellent contribution to this borad (dan m), Friday, 3 July 2026 bookmarkflaglink

Watched the US Canada Olympics Hockey final and 3vs3 was so so wrong.

"as someone who posts on the internet, I have unique insight on the British, including other counties which aren't Britain"

Otm xp

You want proper ET and pens. Surprised North Americans want to cut a thing short.

Think of the lost time you could be frying your mins watching ads!!

3v3 is contentious among hockey fans

there's actually a lot of data on 5v5 in OT and i prefer 3v3, though you know, i'm in favor of trying 4v4 tbvh

I'm in favour of 24v24, if only for the laughs.

I don't know if it's particularly American or N. American thing but I should have added artificial turf fields to the poll options, bonus points if those fields have gridiron football lines, lacrosse lines, and other markings on them all at once

dan have you seen the grass in BC place? ridiculous amount of money thrown at that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru91R3naFQY

Yeah, noticed it for the first time during Canada's game against Schweiz iirc

(#saveTheCaps)

Also related, NFL players have recognized that the grass in their stadia is working and are now demanding it in all venues, and good on them for doing so

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/49030490/fifa-world-cup-grass-nfl-stadiums-debate-field-surface

On Wednesday, the NFL Players Association posted to social media an image that read: Player Voices Should Shape Their Game from the Ground Up. The word "ground" is designed to look like grass. The second slide on the post showed 92% of its players preferred grass, according to an NFLPA survey.

when is the next fixture and upon what pitch shall the match be played, fellow glory supporters?

i do find american soccer fans adopting general soccer fan practices like scarves and singing to be a little cringe but ultimately who cares go out there and have fun even you like soccer but not any american sports which is weird but it is what it is

They give us a scarf every year as OG season ticket holders.

The average temp at match time is 85 degrees here, even at 7 pm kick. So thry go unworn

My incredulity re this general discussion is based on 1. It srsly comes up in every navel-gazing post-tournament "what if" analysis for as long as I have been following the US team and 2. In more recent times, MLS and the USSF establishment have been Doing It Right with investment into youth academies at every club that hoover up a lot of local talent across multiple age groups. The oldest of these academies have only been operating for about 20 years.

Some have been more successful than others (check out how many players from the recent roster came out of MLS academies, particularly Philly, Dallas, and NYRB) but there have been improvements across the board, albeit slowly. Most of the best players that have come through the academies went to play at clubs in Europe where the level is higher, but most are/were not more than squad players who were good deals in the transfer market. Pulisic and McKennie are the only ones who have made the jump to bigger clubs and really managed to stick, though I could see Chris Richards leveling up soon too.

I thought this piece by Leander Notgonnaspellhissurname summed up the embarrassment of the home field advantage that they couldn't live up to quite well. I bet it takes another 20 years to see anything like getting to the level of a semifinal.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jul/09/the-us-delivered-their-best-modern-world-cup-performance-and-also-let-themselves-down

Xps Seattle invented soccer, as the story goes 🤮

Good article. It's basically how i feel

I find the name of Real Salt Lake a bit annoying. Which monarchy is supposed to be their patron?

Mormonism? Idk

yeah thats the worst its not even a soccer thing to call yr team real its just one very famous team

guess they did ask real madrid if it was cool and they said yeah whatever

I've always thought it would be funny if Florida got a third team and named it Galatallahassee

I think the discussion doesn’t understand how difficult it is to make really good players. Pep grew up in La Masia, played under Cryuff, learnt their system inside and out, became Barcelona boss at the height of their homegrown boom, then went to Bayern - the two clubs with the best homegrown players in this century! - and when he went to Man City he had all the money, all the scouting, he took staff from Barcelona and… Phil Foden and Cole Palmer can’t make the England squad.

I just don’t really know how America would then come out with a generation of talents better than that without it being pure dumb luck.

the question isn't "why aren't the usa better at football?" - that's obvious to everyone, the question is "why do people think the usa should be better at football?"

cause we wanna win baby

I was looking for this piece earlier, Tenorio is a good writer and he covered the Fire for a bit so I know he's not completely full of shit.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7427234/2026/07/07/usmnt-world-cup-exit-round-16-belgium/?unlocked_article_code=1.v1A.-zED.mQPUlznnDXJh&source=athletic_user_shared_gift_article_copylink&smid=url-share-ta

Dunno if the gift link works, it came from bsky:

https://bsky.app/profile/paultenorio.bsky.social/post/3mq2tfdi3zs2k

Anyway the important bit is this:

The next part will be harder. American soccer has a tendency to act as if it can simply speak something into existence. That if it talks long enough about potential, it’ll simply turn into progress. Or that if you say you want to be one of the world’s best, and if you repeat it enough times, you’ll simply get there over time.

It doesn’t work that way.

This is what I was trying to get at earlier, there have been so many moments where it's clear a pundit or a coach or a federation president thinks they have the key, or they can describe moneyball success and they keep getting proven wrong.

The results speak for themselves and I think part of it stems from the deserved, awesome success of the women's program, because so few other countries were funding the women's game. When USSF (and colleges, really) found success there I think the money men figured they could just do the same on the men's side and here we are.

I thought of one, maybe this could be termed an American & Canadian innovation: Additional on-field referees, say one in each half. Ice hockey adapted this not too long ago and I think it is a benefit to the game. Hockey has a lot of stop-start action that makes it different from soccer but the linesmen solely exist to call offside and the refs deal with penalty calls and judging goals. Might be a solution to too much VAR, or might just instigate more VAR…

inspiration they could take from american sports re var is make it a challenge system instead of having the refs investigate every little thing whenever they feel like it

no limits on challenge either, you can for example challenge the suit the manager is wearing

the Polymarket of challenges

30 minute “Superbowl show” in the middle of the World Cup final.

Yeah that's a bad one

https://twitter..com/stoolpresidente/status/2077515516684419318?s=46

have to say the presidente has a point

Like most things he says, it's an entirely unoriginal point rooted in his own ignorance

thats crazy to be a professional sports talker and not know about the 3rd place game, sadly he is correct tho

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

"zero - zero"

Feel like this thread did pretty well as containment for some of the best and worst of my countrymen's ideas. 🫡🇺🇸

We get clowned as culture vultures if we say "nil-nil" though.

I do my own thing, say "ZIP-ZIP"

Goose eggs baby

the mutual big squadoosh

Did FIFAntino out American-innovste us all with this ridiculous scam?

https://apnews.com/article/fifa-investors-infantino-kushner-uefa-afc-76169d3e9bb68f4d174b3c87f6b53e50

yeah makes Trump’s chiseling look rinky dink

give the man credit hes a singular figure beyond any national identity or established routes

One of the Kushners is involved.

of course

new kushner just dropped

in 4 years, the World Cup will be called the Pennzoil/BlueChew Soccer World Championships, featuring 96 nations, with the US given an automatic bye to the Final, and the right to annex any 4 players from another nations.

Other on-field innovations will include:

-each coach gets 3 time outs, after which they can advance the ball to outside the box for a set piece
-no more yellow or red cards, just 'technical fouls' and a limit of fouls you can commit before you're made to leave the field
-goals count more from beyond 40 yards
-no more draws, tied after regulation, it goes to 3 on 3 footie until someone scores
-no more offside
-fouls in the box are not penalties unless they were in the act of shooting

I'm kind of impressed by how Infantino has managed to establish a new level of graft and evil in a field pretty much synonymous with graft and evil

damn that new adbusters/soccer hits hard xp

watching the world come together to assassinate infantino is really heartwarming

FIFA presidents are shockingly resistant to criticism and coups. If enough brown envelopes have gone into enough hands under the table, he could easily make this another failed coup d’état. Havelange and Blatter didn’t even having the connections Infantino has but they still got away with murder. Still, fingers crossed

the rapidity with which europe has aligned against him and the seriousness of the threats theyre making makes me think hes cooked

and you know they gotta be thinking about leaving fifa forever and starting over

I think he'll be forced out if momentum continues, but it'll need to be sustained. Replacement candidates are likely to be just as bad.

I hope a portion of the animosity is based on his compulsory appearance on every match broadcast during the WC.

It's like the decline of the Roman Empire tho - no point worrying how bad the next lad will be, just get rid of the cunt in charge now.

African nations are all backing him btw. He could definitely survive this. Whether FIFA will or not is a different matter.

Hush money in Africa was how Blatter held on for so long too

uefa threatening to boycott, do various maneuvers to grind fifa to a halt, he cant survive that or fifa cant survive it

As Uefa looks to be backing down from the boycott threat, Infantino seems to have got away with it.

That was always going to happen.