“Soccer is excruciatingly boring”. Love soccer, helps me sleep.
“Soccer is excruciatingly boring”
Of the 16 matches played through Monday, eight ended in a low scoring tie — and the teams and their fans celebrated for not losing. That seems to be the strategy in the preliminary rounds — teams are not playing to win; rather, they are playing not to lose. BORING!
Here are a few rule changes that could increase scoring and perhaps make the game interesting:
- Penalize contact fouls by sending the offending player to a penalty box for a minute or two (similar to hockey and lacrosse). The team with the advantage would then use the penalty time to maximize offense and hopefully score goals.
- Once the offensive team crosses the centerline with the ball into the defensive zone, it must keep the ball in the defensive zone or, if the ball is passed back across the center line, then the entire team must retreat to its zone before crossing the centerline again with the ball (similar to hockey). This rule would hopefully end the boring tactic of repeatedly passing the ball back and forth from offensive players to defensive players, the goalie, etc.
- Penalize teams for stalling (similar to NCAA wrestling). If the team is not attempting in good faith to score, then the other side gets possession of the ball at mid-field.
- Any played who attempts to draw a foul by faking contact should get a red card and an immediate suspension. If he does it again during the tournament, then he is banned from international play for life. In the alternative, if a player fakes contact in an attempt to draw a foul, then the opposing team can beat the crap out of him for 30 seconds or until he losses consciousness, whichever occurs first.