Like most people that I have never met, I have been watching a lot of the World Cup - the tournament that everybody that is not an American watches like it is 63 Super Bowls played over a four week time span. But then again, I will watch anything that involves countries playing each other. I even watched the World Cup of Rugby last year. Sports between nations are like mini-wars. You get to get all of that angst out on the field like when the 1980 U.S. Hockey team beat the Soviet Union. While I am not sure we have any problems with Algeria, it was still fun to watch the U.S. beat them in “overtime” on Wednesday.
Having said that, I am the first to admit that I have no idea what is happening in a soccer game. I just know scoring a goal happens about as often as somebody hitting a triple in major league baseball. Soccer is called “The Beautiful Game.” “Beautiful” must translate into the word “subtle” in every other language besides English. Somebody once described American football as an action movie with constant explosions and screaming. Soccer, on the other hand, was described as a suspense film where you are constantly holding your breath while you wait on the one scene where the bad guy finally gets it in the end. While I am a bigger fan of action movies, it is pretty entertaining when somebody actually scores a goal. Almost as exciting is a dramatic save by the goalie. So how do we get more of these moments so that we in the U.S. will tune in? Naturally, as the know-it-all American, I have a few ideas.
1. Give more points for larger margins of victory. In Group Play of the World Cup, teams get three points for a win and one for a tie. To encourage more scoring, make victories by a margin of one only worth two points. If a team wins by a margin of two goals, give them three points. A margin of three gives them four points, and so on. More points means more motivation to keep scoring.
2. Make fouling more costly. I know, I know, yellow cards, red cards; but honestly there are a lot of these little nickel-dime fouls that occur at midfield where the punishment is minimal. Every three fouls should result in a free kick from about thirty yards no matter where it occurred on the field. This would be similar to free throws in basketball after a team goes into the bonus.
3. Give me a break with the off sides calls. Off sides should not exist if the ball is in the box. That area should be a free for all. In other parts of the field, off sides should only be called if the guy is really off sides – like holding in football.
4. De-clutter the box on free kicks. Corner kicks and free kicks are actually pretty entertaining when the team runs some rehearsed play. Some of them are like little football/basketball plays with reverses, give and go’s, and other misdirection. The problem is there are usually so many people in the box that there is barely room for a ball. For free kicks and corner kicks both teams should have to put three players on the other side of the fifty (or half court line or whatever they call it). Once the ball is kicked, they can come sprinting in. Less people means more space and more chances for somebody doing one of those Pele bicycle kicks.
5. Just let them use their hands and knock the crap out of each other. Oh wait, that’s the NBA.
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