As the World Cup looms, I have a short treatise that I submit to the sporting professionals:
The game of football is, on the whole, dull. Incredible skill is required by ~30 players (I include the subs out of a misplaced sense of respect) to last 90-100 minutes of running around in the grass and the entire result can be settled if one of them scores 1 point in the first 15 seconds. This is considered a national sport for many european countries, with religious followings that defy logic.
Thanks for reading Dispatches from the Pavement! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
The evolution of the game from my perspective as someone who has no real affiliation with any football team (except the occasional confusing emotional surge when the England Women’s team do what the men’s team perpetually fail at), is one that requires todays players to have finesse, tricks, foresight, and a whole lot more to outsmart the opposing club. These displays of professional football-ness are occasionally entertaining and makes useful fodder for the social media teams that need to keep up with the trends of ‘content’.
Hundreds of thousands of hours are spent pouring over statistics that feel like they go back centuries. Statements like, “Germany haven’t won against Italy after going 4 goals behind since the 1976 friendly where Italy had 7 players sent off for inappropriate use of rosary beads.” are presented as if that has any bearing on the team that has nothing in common with even the ghosts of the players aside from a vague sense of shared nationality. The gameplay has evolved, the rules have changed, the players have changed, the kit has changed.
Throughout the match you will be given stats about possession, corners, fouls, offsides, the pass to tattoo ratio, kicks made by yellow football boots, which amount, in the end, to nothing. A team can have all of these in their favour and the outcome is: ‘so what?’ Goal or no goal is the only thing that matters. And I think everyone knows how misguided this obsession with statistics is, and spend careers not talking about goals for the majority of the time, with entire channels dedicated to the moving and changing of teams that players are doing, because they know, deep down, that this whole thing is really boring.
Here is my proposal to finally make this game ‘beautiful’ without just being told that’s what the game is with zero evidence.
Get rid of the offside rule.
The offside rule is, frankly, the most annoying bit of the game. It is the most egregious, infuriating flaw in the structure of human competition. “Oh, they were offside.” Entire tactics and teams are built around the misplaced goal of making the opposition find themselves in an offside position, and the constant looking to VAR for offside checks is exhausting. Errant shoulder blades are not a thing. But the thing is, if the attacking players get closer to the goal than the defenders, then they’re more likely to score and that’s what the game’s about. Eliminating this rule will stop the nonsensical flags waving to put a stop to the genuine celebration and make the game a lot more dramatic.
No goals means field attrition
An important aspect to goal scoring is the way to make sure teams are truly, religiously, solely focused on goal scoring, because I don’t think they are. Under these new rules, any team that hasn’t scored a goal loses a player every 5 minutes from the 45 minute mark. This will make scoring a goal in the first half really important. The first player to be removed from either team is the goal keeper and the player can only be returned through substitution once the team scores. By the 85th minute there are 2 players in orange and pink high-vis vests so that they can 1) make each other out in the bleak vast empty grassland and 2) differentiation from the security staff. I can’t stress enough how much goals make the football matches worth watching.
Minimum 3 goals.
If you don’t score 3 goals after 90 minutes, another 30 minutes are played. if it’s still less than 3, another 30 minutes are added. The principle: just keep going. I’m sorry, but a game with only 1 goal is worse than a game with no goals, but I can’t be doing with settling for a draw. You’re watching Chelsea and Crystal Palace waffle about not scoring and you’ve got a barbecue planned later; the players need to feel the pressure from the crowd that goals need scoring for this to be a match, otherwise refunds.
No more goal kicks; only corners
Goal kicks are boring.
Only penalties
I’m not quite sure how to implement this gracefully, but, in order to suitably take the feedback on football from my wife, it’s important we acknowledge that, for some, penalties are truly the only good bit of football. The rest is fluff. In order to accommodate this viewpoint, the coin toss at the beginning of the match should not be to decide whatever it decides today. I know what this is for in tennis, but in football, it’s irrelevant… unless it’s to decide if we, in fact, decide the winner with just penalties. Flip a coin and then everyone floods to one side of the pitch to take penalties. This adds to the already inherent drama of penalties, by potentially meaning that after the 2 hour build up, getting to the stadium, finding your way through to your seat, listening to whatever it is you listen to while you watch the players warm up and the squad announcements, you are then presented with a 10 minute penalty shootout and head home. But you have equal chance of getting a game that could go on for days, finally giving you the quidditch experience you read about in those books.
No more conventional penalties; only Goalies.
Somewhat fixing the challenge set above of continuous play until the glorious 3 goal minimum, it does eliminate then penalty shootout in standard play; coin toss notwithstanding. While you probably think I want to have no more penalties because as a Brit I have the drama of losing at penalties drilled into me as someone who finds himself in England during the tournaments where England participate. The historic English penalty performance is always something used to fill a 15 minute quiet period in the coverage. This is drilled into you by every analysis on every channel and sports outlet. The message is clear: England and penalties is basically hell. You would be half correct. But if you’re going to resort to the modern equivalent of the gladiator appearances in the Colosseum, then make it interesting; only goalies. Strikers have had their chance and failed. Let’s have the two remaining players who can barely use their feet give us some physical comedy. But also, penalties for fouls in the box is silly. Just more free kicks. Add to the chaos.
I’m hoping this reaches the FIFA World Cup referees before the tournament kicks off, because I have offered a blueprint on how to improve the game infinitely for the better, make it much more watchable, and make it about what it should be: Goals. I have wasted too many hours watching the ‘wrong’ game, where the team on paper classed as the better team is playing, only to have them play to the tactics of the tournament. I should have watched Iceland vs Serbia. Last time I missed many a glorious match of, and you will forgive my bluntness here, GOALS!
Thanks for reading Dispatches from the Pavement! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
