[central_va]

The solution is a bigger goal.

[Labyrinthos]

And a smaller pitch so that they look like they are kicking the ball further.

[sphinx]

I agree with the larger goal. I like defense, and a 0-0 tie doesn't bother me. The problem in soccer, however, is that the dearth of scoring makes bad calls and fluke goals far too important. Those happen in all sports, but the attitude in all other sports is "bad break; let's get it back," and unless you are in the closing seconds, teams (and fans) generally feel that they have a sporting chance to do so. In soccer, between two good teams, one goal is huge, and a two goal lead in the second half is almost insurmountable. The blown call is far more important than it ought to be.

The U.S. and Sweden last night played to a scoreless draw. There were a couple of no-calls on handballs in the box, and a couple of pretty rough takedowns of offensive players in the box, which were also not called. Last night, fortunately, these roughly balanced out, and the referees were at least consistent. But that's a classic soccer example of a situation where one whistle and a PK would have likely decided the game. A slightly larger goal would make this much less common.

Fans of U.S. football who object to soccer's low scoring need to remember that a 3-2 soccer score is the football equivalent of 21-14, which is a fine score. Of course, television has been deforming U.S. sports since the 1970's, and football, basketball, and baseball have all been goosed to generate cheap scoring to attract casual tv audiences. Part of the attraction of soccer is that it hasn't prostituted itself for television. But a slightly larger goal would be an improvement.

[kearnyirish2]

Less players on each side would get better results as well; when a team wants to defend with 11 people it is a boring two hours...