Free substitution is a good idea. I grant you that.
Four or five players running hard still beats sitting on your ass half the game.
I’m glad you like hockey, but hockey players (like in water polo) also have a Newtonian advantage. Water polo guys have buoyancy and hockey has less friction and inertia to overcome.
Maybe the timing of the game should bother me, but for some reason it just doesn’t. I do grant you that the referee in soccer has a lot of leeway in assessing penalties. What bothers me more is match fixing and corruption in FIFA.
Close your eyes and imagine that you're watching the best soccer game ever played -- with the best players the sport has ever seen. Now imagine that the rules of the game have changed in an instant, and those same players -- especially the defenders -- spend up to half the game running backwards at full speed. And imagine that the player with the ball doesn't just have to keep opposing players from getting it away from him, but he also has to contend with opposing players who can line him up and belt him into next week in a full-speed collision while he has possession of the ball.
Now tell me which player has to be better conditioned. LOL.
Ironically, soccer has a natural tendency to devolve into a dull game because the players do need to be in great condition. The problem is that the conditioning for soccer is aerobic, while a more exciting sport like hockey is one where anaerobic conditioning is needed. That's what gives it such a frenetic pace.
Picture a guy running a marathon in typical fashion. Then picture another guy who runs the same marathon in a series of short bursts, where he sprints at full speed for 40-60 seconds and then sits down for two 40-60 second shifts ... then does this repeatedly until he covers the entire 26 miles. Which competitor has to be the better athlete here?
> Water polo guys have buoyancy
Back in the day when I had low body fat(5%-6%), if I exhaled I’d sink. People that are in great shape don’t float well unless their lungs are inflated.