[HN Gopher] Own-goal football (2022) ___________________________________________________________________ Own-goal football (2022) Author : colinprince Score : 134 points Date : 2023-06-01 16:55 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (generalist.academy) (TXT) w3m dump (generalist.academy) | karmakurtisaani wrote: | Adding to the discussion on the rules set in soccer, I've always | found it bad design that the referee has only yellow and red | cards for penalizing individual players. Especially the red card | is a hard penalty, which leads to the referee having too much | influence on the outcome, and to counter that, the referees don't | like to give out cards too easily. | | Now, the consequence of that is for example that players fake | injuries constantly, as they can't be reasonably penalized, but | the faking might yield a penalty kick or a red card to the other | team. However, it makes the game incredibly cringeworthy to | watch. | | Contrast this to ice hockey, where the minimal penalty is a | timeout of 2 minutes. It's enough to put your team in trouble, | but you can recover by playing careful defence for 2 minutes. So | if a player fakes injuries or otherwise behaves in a minor bad | way, the referee can give them a 2 minute penalty - enough to | punish, but not enough to skew the rest of the game. | tavorep wrote: | Those who dive can be penalized though. In the Europa League | Final just yesterday a player on Roma got a yellow card for | simulation trying to get a penalty call. Can the refs do better | at catching these? Yes. But to say there's no recourse or it's | not penalized is just wrong. | linhvn wrote: | If you fake injuries, or fall in the penalty area, you might | get a yellow / red card. So no cheaties here, especially with | VAR now in place. | katamarimambo wrote: | Considering how 'tanking' for talent acquiring has become a | strategy in american sports, I hope at least we get to see this | scenario with both teams trying to score own-tds/baskets/etc and | fiercily defending the opponents goal in a match | steveylang wrote: | There's also the situation in American football where the team | on defense purposely lets another team score a touchdown rather | than stop them for a field goal, in order to have some time | left to try to regain the lead. Also vice versa, where the | player on offense will purposely fall before going into the end | zone. | | This one though is at least somewhat of a double-edged sword, | as it's not a 100% given that the team's kicker will make a | field goal (probably around 90-95% success rate.) | owlninja wrote: | Or taking an intentional safety! | bombcar wrote: | Time management is a huge important part of American | football; books have been written about the (often | unintuitive) results: | https://johntreed.com/products/football-clock- | management-5th... | | The clock acts as an impossibly powerful defense that only | comes to play for you after a time, and that can be | exploited. | permo-w wrote: | is this because the bottom team gets the first draft pick? | jabroni_salad wrote: | Exactly. Look up 76ers "The Process" if you want to see a | huge example of it. They spent 3 years losing to reel in | embiid and simmons. | barbazoo wrote: | > Football has a lot of strange rules - like Ted Lasso, I still | don't understand exactly how the offside rule works. | | Spoiler alert, he did figure it out in the end | ghaff wrote: | Every now and then, it seems as if some referees are a bit | unclear on the details as well. (It is admittedly a bit | squishier than when there is a hard and fast line on some field | or court. | buildbot wrote: | It's always somewhat nonplussing (grammer?) when people say | they are unclear on it. If you are past the last defender, on | the opposing side of the field, when the ball is kicked to | you, offsides. | | It's hard to get right though, which is different. Having | both ref'd and played soccer, you absolutely need lineman | watching the field closely. | ghaff wrote: | I was being a bit sarcastic. Obviously the refs know the | rules. But it's fairly easy to get a bit wrong at the | margins. I've reffed ice hockey by comparison and, while | you may miss a call here and there it's pretty clear at | least if you look at a slo-mo replay whether a call was | right or not based on puck and skates position. | toast0 wrote: | Being somewhat familiar with ice hockey cause my kid | plays, and having read the description of this offsides, | ice hockey is much easier because you check position of | the skaters relative to the line at the same time as the | puck crosses the line. My kid's league has instant | offsides, so you don't have to keep track of potential | offsides, but you do have to allow otherwise offsides if | the defenders put the puck in. | | Under IFAB law, you have to keep track of where the | potentially offside player relative to other players is | at the time that the ball is kicked elsewhere, which | means having eyes focused in more than one place at once. | Not an easy job. | amatheus wrote: | The player must be past the line of the ball for it to be | offside too; it the ball is passed backwards or at the same | line is not offside even if there are no defenders. | glormph wrote: | Still, I was surprised when someone told me the rule was | "at least two opponent players between you and the goal | line" instead of only one. I had never thought of the | keeper. | linhns wrote: | My bet would be he hasn't fully understood it. Some of his | sentences are clunky and messed up his football terms. | paranoidxprod wrote: | He started not knowing a thing about soccer, but ended up | knowing at least one thing about football. | smcl wrote: | The offside rule gets far more attention than it deserves and | in my opinion it's happened due to the increased popularity and | quality of live televised football over the last ~30 years. | | To me the best place to start is to understand what the rule is | trying to accomplish. It's designed to discourage a player | hanging out by their opponents goal the entire game in the | hopes that somehow their team can somehow get the ball to them | and they'll have only the goalkeeper to beat (or whatever poor | defender was tasked with tracking them) - "poaching" we'd call | it in 5 or 7-aside games where there is no offside rule. | | How do you do that? Well you just try to make a rule that says | "if you're inside your opponents half your teammates can't pass | you the ball unless there's at least two players between you | and the opponents goal line". | | It only becomes tricky to explain or understand because: | | - it is encoded within the laws of the game in a very specific | way that's a little tricky to digest in its entirety | | - most people know some bits of it but only half-remember | little details and try to explain all of that at once and | confuse both themselves and the person they're explaining it to | | - some people think that the ball needs to be passed in a given | direction, leading to (rare) situations where they're unable to | explain an offside call or to incorrectly describe it as wrong | | - some try to explain it in terms of one attacking player being | beyond one defender, forgetting that it's actually _two | players_ on the defending side, one of whom is usually-but-not- | always the goalkeeper | | - people try to include exceptions when they explain it (you | can't be offside from a throw-in, for example) | | - local football associations try to tweak it to be more fair | or to appease fans (but inevitably make it more complex and | piss off fans). They might change it so you're offside even if | you didn't personally receive the ball for example. | | - it is often explained to or by someone who has had a couple | of beers and is attempting to demonstrate it by moving pint | glasses or beermats around on a pub table | | - if you want to be _technically_ correct, it 's not just "is a | player in an offside position" it is "is any part of an | attacking player's body _that is allowed to play the ball_ | offside " (i.e. you can technically be offside of your head, | legs, chest, ass are offside .. but if it's only part of your | arm that's in a given position you're not offside) | | - etc | | Each added detail or half-remembered corner-case can make any | explanation more convoluted and hard to understand. | | But for 99% of situations the sentence "if you're inside your | opponents half your teammates can't pass you the ball unless | there's at least two players between you and the opponents goal | line" will suffice. | | If you want to simplify it as "... at least one defender ..." | that's fine in most cases. A player on the attack who is trying | to avoid being offside will just look out for the last | defender, assuming the goalkeeper will be stood near their | goal. A player who is attacking will play the ball assuming | their teammates were onside unless they're obviously not. A | player who is defending will keep an eye on the furthest-back | defender - there will be a loud member of the defense | coordinating this, telling them to move up or down the field. | | If you want to think about it in more detail, remember what | parts of the body the attacker is allowed to touch the ball | with. | | If you're watching a match in person, you likely won't be in a | position to make call it in any more detail than that anyway. | | If you're watching on TV the commentators will break an offside | call down in excruciating detail for you and show you lots of | stupid graphics and slow-mo replays. | waynecochran wrote: | After years of watching my kids, I am not sure the refs always | know what is offside either. | | Growing up I always made fun of soccer and considered it a game | for uncircumcised foreigners, but I have to like it now because | my kids play. The worst thing about soccer is that no one, | outside the ref, really knows how much time is left in the | game. That and flopping in the box to get penalty shots. | [deleted] | barbazoo wrote: | They know the rule, the problem is just that it's sometimes | hard to see where the players are relative to each other the | moment the ball leaves someone's foot so there are false | positives and false negatives. Tech and replays make it less | and less of a problem but it takes away from the game in my | opinion. It's becoming too techie. | | > Growing up I always made fun of soccer and considered it a | game for uncircumcised foreigners | | This made me actually lol | locustous wrote: | > The worst thing about soccer is that no one, outside the | ref, really knows how much time is left in the game | | This is also kind of a feature. Different kind of suspense. I | don't mind it. | | > That and flopping in the box to get penalty shots. | | I don't like diving, but I can understand it to some extent. | The ref misses a lot of the illegal contact. | | Grabbing, pushing, pretty much anything you do with your | hands to manipulate another player is illegal contact. | Shoulder contact is mostly fine and the generally allowed | strength and positioning play. | | If you have someone doing subtle tactical fouls in the box | (very common). The ref will probably miss it because it's | hard to see the finer technical contact at 30-40 yards away. | Then there's the safety issue. If you're a forward and you | get plowed by a defender, it can be quite dangerous. There | tends to be a size mismatch favoring the defender. | | So exaggerating contact to make sure the ref is aware that | it's occurred is a counter to potential defender | gamesmanship, or worse. | | I've never been able to do it, I keep my feet at even | egregious fouls (really good balance) and consequently, | despite probably hundreds of fouls in the box, I never get | awarded penalties. | | But... I still retain a bit of appreciation for the divers as | I know what defenders would be like if the threat of it | wasn't there. | | Another common problem is the huge license keepers are | granted with physical contact. | gfunk911 wrote: | In the NHL, you get 2 points for winning, 0 points for losing in | regulation, and 1 point for losing in overtime. | | The obvious result (to everyone but the creators of the rule I | guess) is that, if a game is tied near the end of regulation, it | is best for both sides if the game goes to overtime. There are 2 | points available for a game decided in regulation, but 3 if | decided in overtime. I assume both teams would sit quietly and | wait for overtime if it were tolerated. | bowmessage wrote: | Why is that obvious? Why would a team want to allow their | opposition to score any points at all? | jfengel wrote: | Because it could be you who gets the point. | | If it's tied near the end of regulation, your expectation | value is 1. But if you and the other team wait it out and let | it go into overtime, your expectation value is 1.5. | pubby wrote: | This one boggles my mind because broadcasters don't want games | to go into overtime. A 3-point system where overtime win/losses | are split 2/1 emphasizes winning in the final few minutes, | which is exciting to both viewers and businessmen. Maybe one | day they'll switch. | thazework wrote: | Unless there is a scenerio where one team really doesn't want | the other to get even a point? | | Speaking of NHL and weird rules iirc there's an emergency | goalie that can be pulled out of the crowd to fill in for | either team. | kenjackson wrote: | That's only the case if neither team feels like they have a | decided advantage before OT to win. Otherwise, you don't want | the other team to get a point, because you're competing against | them in total points for playoff position. | throwbadubadu wrote: | > Football has a lot of strange rules - like Ted Lasso, I still | don't understand exactly how the offside rule works | | Aw, come on, you cannot start a soccer article with that :( | thazework wrote: | Previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35289875 | jefftk wrote: | Here's a list I made of how reversing incentives might look for a | range of games, including Soccer/Football: | https://www.jefftk.com/p/playing-to-lose | | This was prompted by a conversation with Ben Orlin, who wrote up | his version as | https://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2014/06/11/playing-to-lose-o... | divan wrote: | Sports is one of the most fascinating and underexplored examples | of Goodhart's law (collapsing correlation between the metric and | a goal). | | One of the most widely known examples of this is a London 2012 | badminton scandal, when tournament design led to misaligned | incentives for teams (it was beneficial for them to lose a game, | to meet with less formidable opponent known beforehand). But | there are dozens of such cases across many sports. One of the | attempts to collect them can be found in a paper "When sports | rules go awry" (DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2016.06.050). | | UPD. Thanks to sibling comment, good find - youtube playlist from | Secret Base "Weird Rules": | https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUXSZMIiUfFSVTX8z2Xl5... | munificent wrote: | The meta-game of game design: how do you design a game whose | mechanics lead to incentives that align with your intentions is | a fascinating area. It also has deep connections to policy | design in politics. | | In the political arena, it gets so much more complex because | you have disagreement on intentions and people deliberately | obfuscating their intentions. So you've got people arguing over | legislation who are trying to aiming the laws have different | emergent properties. | kevinmchugh wrote: | For games at least, attempting to be highly prescriptive in | the rules risks strangling the game. Basketball was designed | to be played without dribbling. By the time players started | single-handed dribbling it was pretty clear what's the more | interesting, exciting game to watch and play | andrewflnr wrote: | What, it was supposed to be pass-only, like ultimate | frisbee? | munificent wrote: | Yeah, reading the original rules, that's exactly how it | sounds. | | And then some Yale players realized they could "pass it | to themselves" by moving while it bounced off the floor. | divan wrote: | Right. Do you have any good recommendations to read on this | matter? | | Here are a couple of good papers on how metrics distort | systems and what can be done to mitigate this. [1] [2]. | | And then a new post by Cedric Chin on practical examples of | mitigating Goodhart's law in Amazon. Really good read: [3] | | But generally, I feel like not many people or organizations | care about this. The non-profit sports world is conservative | and slow, organizations and corporations are also often slow, | and there some psychological/social effects linked to the | metrics-that-don't-work-anymore. | | --- | | - [1] Categorizing Variants of Goodhart's Law - | https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.04585 | | - [2] Building Less Flawed Metrics: Dodging Goodhart and | Campbell's Laws - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/33 | 4478956_Building_... | | - [3] https://commoncog.com/goodharts-law-not-useful/ | munificent wrote: | I don't but I'd love to read them if anyone else does. | tunesmith wrote: | I like the idea of a two-phase game, where for the first | phase (most of the game), you're motivated to play your | hardest for the entire duration, because the score imbalance | wouldn't mean you _win_ , but would just mean you have that | much more of a relative advantage in the second phase. | | And then the second phase could be evenly-matched, or it | could be David and Goliath, but then still anything could | happen. | Buttons840 wrote: | A closely related question is: Should playing the fun way, | and playing the optimal way be the same thing? I used to | think think the answer was yes, but Spelunky 2 made me doubt; | in Spelunky using a bomb or a rope is rarely optimal, but it | can make things simpler and more fun. I think it's a well | designed game, so the fact that optimal play and fun play are | different is making me think. | munificent wrote: | _> Should playing the fun way, and playing the optimal way | be the same thing? _ | | This is something that game designers, especially in | roguelikes where there is a lot of procedural generation | and combinatorial gameplay experiences, think about a lot. | | There are all sorts of related questions: | | * What should the space of optimal strategies look like? A | single point that players should try to discover and | optimize for? A region where there are a variety of equally | valid ways? | | * What are the discincentives for non-optimal play? Should | it just be boring, or should the game actively punish the | player for not following an expected strategy? | | * What to do about strategies that are extremely effective | but not fun? In roguelikes, that's things like "farming" | where you find an easy to kill monster that breeds and just | mow through hundreds of them to grind XP. Should the game | try to avoid those scenarios so that players don't have to | make an uncomfortable choice between maximizing versus fun, | or should that be up to players? | NikolaNovak wrote: | There was a period in world rally championship where it was | beneficial not to win day one or day two of a 3 day | championship. | | This resulted in hilarious but rational situations where top | racers would race like maniacs for the entire day, then | 200meters before the end of the a last stage of the day slow | down and crawl for say 12 seconds, so they would come a second | behind somebody else and not lead the pack the next day | (leading the pack effectively means clearing the path on gravel | roads for the rest of the racers) | | It was meant to even the field by handicapping the front | runners (the Mario kart approach I suppose). But it backfired | spectacularly. | | I think they went back to randomization after that. | bombcar wrote: | You find this in online games quite a bit - the have a | qualifying round in a tournament which divides players into ten | divisions. The top three out of ten in the top four divisions | get a great prize, and the top one in the remaining get a | slightly lesser version. So it makes sense to smurf yourself | into a lower division and hope to win the one prize than | compete with equal skill players for the three prizes. | soldarnal wrote: | The game clock is one of the more common rules that tends to | warp gameplay in this way, with teams that are ahead trying to | avoid play and run out the clock rather than continue to engage | in the contest. The other team, meanwhile, resorts to | increasingly desperate tactics like pulling the goalie, | intentionally committing fouls, or laterals and trying for the | onside kick. | | Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elam_Ending | kodt wrote: | The end of American Football games is so frustrating because | of this, with a team just constantly taking a knee to run out | the clock. It makes the last 2 minutes of the game useless. | | Constant fouls in Basketball hoping the opposing team will | miss a free throw is another frustrating tactic that drags | the last 2 minutes on forever, in what is usually a forgone | conclusion anyway. | freetime2 wrote: | I find clock management to be an interesting aspect of the | game in American Football, because literally every second | counts. It's one of the things that separates elite players | and coaches from everyone else. Tom Brady, for example, was | renowned for his ability to move the ball down the field | and score in the last two minutes of a game. | | Sure sometimes it means the game is effectively over 2 | minutes early if the leading team gets possession and the | trailing team has no timeouts remaining. But in that case | it just has the effect of shifting the decisive moment a | little bit earlier (if it's a close game). And the rare | games that end with 0 seconds on the clock on a game | winning touchdown or field goal are truly memorable. | hgsgm wrote: | You are allowed to go to the kitchen after 58minutes. | furyofantares wrote: | Also interesting is how lots of rules have standard penalties - | and this turns them into potential strategic components rather | than something you aren't allowed to do. It's not cheating to | break these rules, it's considered part of the game. | kenjackson wrote: | I've always felt basketball is the worst with this of the | major sports. It is a standard strategy to foul at the end of | games when losing (or even if winning by 3 in the final | seconds). The punishment for fouling is to allow the fouled | player to get free throws, but free throws are a skill and | not all players are skilled at it. So if you can foul the | right person you can often change the probability of the | game. | | A simple rule change could end this. For example, a foul in | the last two minutes is a free throw and the ball. | dylan604 wrote: | This is what is known as a "tactical foul" or taking one for | the team | jbandela1 wrote: | Another example is pass interference in college football. It | is a first down and 15 yards from the line of scrimmage. | | Thus if you are getting beat on a play, rather than | potentially allowing 40 or 50 yards and a touchdown, it is | better to blatantly pass interfere (tackle the receiver | before they get the ball, etc). | cafard wrote: | Or, you might just manage it without the ref spotting it, | as late in a recent Super Bowl. | divan wrote: | Yeah, that's kinda expected. But what I'm more worried about | in sports is when metrics(rules) become engrained in that | sports culture and start shaping the sport itself. | | Like, if an athletics high-jump champion has to jump over a | fence with concrete ground - would s/he be still the best in | the world? Probably not, because they're focusing on the | Fosberry flop technique which works only in a competition | setting with a soft landing mat. | | Or in figure skating, where officials think that rules should | reward "complex elements" and now everyone is chasing | "complex" elements (quadruple jumps), skipping the "easy" | elements (actual skating skills). | | One of the problem with a metric substituting the original | True Goal is also when this True Goal is not defined (or | different people defined it differently). This type of | Goodhart's law is hard to fix. I'm not sure how many sports | really have shared understanding of what's a true goal in | their sports. | cafard wrote: | As far as I know, neither the high jump nor the pole vault | ever had hard landing areas. I'm sure that foam rubber is a | lot better than dried cow manure, but guys were still going | way over 6' in the jump and 15' in the vault before foam | rubber came along. | divan wrote: | Right, but I can come up with an infinite number of | examples. Take javelin throw - the essential skill is, | well, throwing a javelin. There are many things that can | theoretically be measured - distance, height, speed, | jiggling, precision, throwing efficiency. For some | reasons (historical, practical) distance was chosen. So | now javelin throwers are good at distances but not at | anything else. Like it's obvious that if you don't train | to hit the target with a javelin, you are probably not | going to be good at it. | | So it's unlikely our javelin throw champion can | outperform the average ancient human in hunting mammoths, | for example. | | I see "mastering javelin throwing skill" as a True Goal | and "distance" as a metric. True Goal probably includes | many aspects of the skill (let's say "distance" and | "precision"), but as we measured only distance, others | got neglected. The end result is far from True Goal | because we disincentivize athletes to practice other | aspects of that basic athletic skill. If the correlation | between "being a truly great javelin thrower" (i.e. great | at all aspects of the skill) and a "distance" existed, | using it for competition resulted in the collapse of the | correlation. Classic Goodhart's effect. | hgsgm wrote: | Mammoths travel in herd, so accuracy isn't very | important. | jacquesm wrote: | There are lots of real world examples of this same | phenomenon and they usually result in ridiculous losses | combined with minor gains on one parameter. Balance is | the key but we tend to reward the specialists (records, | finances). People always want to know who is 'best' at | something. Triathlon is one attempt to break this but | even there it is all quite physical. Chessboxing is | another :) | a_c wrote: | I see it as a principal agent problem [0]. The agent being | the sport players working according the game rules to | maximize their gains. It could be pouring countless hours | into mastering the sport, studying the rules to come up | with best strategies [1], deliberately losing (e.g. for | bribery), among others. The principal(s) are the perceived | sportsmanship, while ill defined, of a particular sports | | It also happens to software engineering. The value of your | code is solely depends on how many times it is being | willingly run. Be it people using it happily or another | piece of code is calling it without caveats. But we come up | with all sorts of metrics, DORA, SPACE, developer | experience, what not. For most family/small business, like | restaurants, groceries, builders, etc, the only thing that | matters are customers willing to return. Somehow people | think that by mimicking what big companies' management | practice does can makes you one of the big companies. While | the most important thing, making things that people want, | is grossly overlooked. People used to make fun of MBAs | parachuting into management right out of school. That | trademark is certainly open to all titles now. | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_p | roble... | | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh5c3duQQ1w | PaulHoule wrote: | Stuff like this is why I fell in love with soccer. | | It didn't come quickly. I was not very engaged with youth soccer | as a kid although looking back it was one of very few "safe | spaces" for me as a kid where being bullied wasn't a problem. I | came to see youth soccer as part of declining social mobility in | the U.S. If you were playing little league maybe you could dream | of being Babe Ruth but there just wasn't any ladder out of youth | soccer at that time. | | Last December I started working on a smart RSS reader that works | a bit like TikTok or Stumbleupon and found that my first | classification model struggled to tell that I liked the NFL and | hated the Premier League and that got me to reading a lot of | sports articles and developing a taxonomy to support feature | engineering. | | After reading articles about games lost by own goals, thinking | about how I'd feel if it was my team in danger of relegation, | etc. I found I really found soccer interesting after all. | kevinmchugh wrote: | Relegation and promotion are just such good systems that all | sports should have them | PaulHoule wrote: | Frequently I get a bunch of free Giants gear around November | because my friends who are Giants fans are disgusted with how | they are playing and don't want to be seen in them. If the | NFL had relegation this couldn't happen so chronically. | | On the other hand, promotion/relegation needs a big enough | market to support multiple tiers. Amazingly, the UK has | several layers of leagues that attract fans and seem to be | economically viable (in some sense) but MLS struggles to | attract any attention at all in the U.S. and how second and | third tier leagues could be viable is beyond me. | iainmerrick wrote: | I think it's somewhat analogous to both NFL and college | football being popular in the US. It's incredible to me | that people are so keen to watch college students play, but | I hear it's a pretty big deal. | kevinmchugh wrote: | There's big swathes of the US that aren't dense enough to | attract an NFL team but have plenty of people who like | football. The urban/rural divide and state rivalries in | the US also makes it an awkward fit sometimes for a | person to root for their nearest team. | | University teams may also be less anchored to an | individual star since they age out so quickly, and could | have a coherent identity for decades under a single coach | kevinmchugh wrote: | I don't know that soccer in the US could support a | promotion/relegation system but basketball, baseball, and | football could. NCAA and MiLB are popular enough that lower | leagues could be sustained. | smcl wrote: | I think the greater worry is that the gap in quality and | finances between any second tier and the NBA or NFL would | be so enormous that you're virtually guaranteed to | bankrupt any relegated team (decreased TV money, | sponsorship, merch, gate receipts) and to completely | crush any newly promoted team. That is unless you dumped | a huge amount of capital into building or subsidising the | second tier for a few seasons at least. | | I don't think an MLS second tier would be too far behind | in terms of quality, and the defacto second tier - the | USL Championship - _currently_ has attendance roughly | double that of the Scottish second tier[0] which is ample | to sustain a professional league, and that 'd surely | improve if there was the possibility of promotion to the | MLS on the line. But if I understand it correctly there's | some weird system where the MLS organization itself owns | the teams, so presumably they would be resistant to any | of them being relegated, unless they _also_ owned those | in the second tier. | | But in reality promotion and relegation isn't a thing in | US professional sport, and it's not structured such that | it's really feasible or desirable. That's not necessarily | a bad thing, it's just different. | | [0] - 5,061/game on average over the 27 USL teams in the | regular season (rising to 7,841 in the post-season) vs | 2,237/game in the mostly-pro Scottish Championship | kevinmchugh wrote: | Where I think the American system breaks down is that the | value of teams is in the branding and the exclusive | status. Just being in the league means the franchise is | worth single digit billion dollars, and that floor will | hold no matter how long a team is bad. | | It can't happen because that floor is useful to the | owners, I imagine if by some miracle it did the NFL would | split into two leagues. There's a bunch of non NFL | football that could also fit into that lower tier, arena, | cfl, fcf. | | The NCAA is the other force keeping this from happening. | The Sooners saturate the need for an Oklahoma football | team, there doesn't need to be a second or third tier | team there. But it'd be more interesting and competitive | if these leagues were integrated together. | | I also would hope promotion/relegation would help with | the tanking that's so noticable in the NHL and NBA but | don't know enough about drafting/recruiting in European | football (and there's probably much simpler solutions | there) | WorldMaker wrote: | The US has second, third, and fourth tier leagues already, | though those are all part of USL rather than MLS. MLS has a | lot more money than USL and isn't interested in | promotion/relegation concepts because it is built like | MLB/NBA and likes the gatekeeping aspects of those because | that influences investment money and helps keep MLS | comparatively rich. But USL thinks promotion/relegation | could work in the US, they just don't think it can work | that well if they don't also control the top tier league. | From my understanding USL has quietly been hoping that play | in the USL Championship league (their top tier and | comparatively in the US market the "second tier" overall) | could get competitive and interesting enough to usurp the | MLS and put USL in a place to have the top-tier and move to | a "proper" European-style relegation/promotion system. | smcl wrote: | If they're not interested in promotion and relegation | maybe a national cup competition, like the FA Cup in | England, could be one fun way to have some level of | integration with the other levels. The excitement of cup | competitions would boost attendance across the board, and | fun moments like cup upsets (a lower tier team defeating | a top-tier one) raise the profile of the sport overall | through media exposure. | | It's maybe more tempting for MLS to focus on money- | spinning continental competitions like the CONCACAF | equivalent to the Champions League. But I think they'd be | missing out if they didn't at least explore a "US FA Cup" | as a means of growing interest in the domestic game | itself, which indirectly benefits them. | [deleted] | brycekahle wrote: | Such a tournament already exists, called the U.S. Open | Cup[1] | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Open_Cup | smcl wrote: | Oh amazing! Shows my ignorance of the game outside my | little bubble, but I'm delighted to learn of its | existence! | yowzadave wrote: | How do you defend against an opponent trying to score an own | goal? Wouldn't it be off-sides if you got between the player and | their goal? | haunter wrote: | No because they control the ball. You are only offside if your | team is controling the ball + you are actively involved in the | play [your team's attack] | CocaKoala wrote: | Interfering with the ball is sufficient to be called for off- | side - you need to be in active play, but you can do that | when your team doesn't have possession. | haunter wrote: | What you are describing would make attacking the keeper | pointless for example when they dropped the ball from hand | for a kickoff, cause that would be offside which is not | true. | | By your description Mandzukic's WC final goal should be | offside https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzN-ahqULc4 | CocaKoala wrote: | Ball is rolling towards the goal - if the attacking | player touches it, it will be offsides: A player in an | offside position has entered active play by "interfering | with play by playing or touching a ball passed or touched | by a team-mate". | | Goalkeeper makes a save, since the ball is rolling | towards the goal. If the attacking player touches it, it | will be offsides: A player in an offside position has | entered active play by "challenging an opponent for the | ball" or "gaining an advantage by playing the ball or | interfering with an opponent when it has [...] been | deliberately saved by any opponent". | | The goalkeeper deliberately plays the ball. Immediately | afterwards, the attacking player receives the ball played | by the goalkeeper - this is not offsides, since "a player | in an offside position receiving the ball from an | opponent who deliberately plays the ball, including by | deliberate handball, is not considered to have gained an | advantage, unless it was a deliberate save by any | opponent." | | https://www.thefa.com/football-rules- | governance/lawsandrules... | CocaKoala wrote: | As long as a nominal defender (not counting the goalie) is in | between you and the goal, I don't think you're off-side. So | presumably it means you have to a) maintain possession of the | ball or 2) clear the ball before all other defenders are able | to make it past whoever currently has possession. A) sounds a | lot easier than 2), though. | jnsie wrote: | No, you'd be offside if your own team member passed you the | ball while you were between the player and their goal. You | wouldn't be offside if the other team had the ball. | | Football would be a nightmare if players were hanging out in | the other team's box, waiting for the ball to be hoofed upfield | to them so they could tap it into the back of the net. Offside | stops this from happening by making sure that the receiving | player is not in front of the opposition's defensive line. | permo-w wrote: | > Football would be a nightmare if players were hanging out | in the other team's box, waiting for the ball to be hoofed | upfield to them so they could tap it into the back of the net | | this is the commonly-held wisdom on offside, but I'm a little | sceptical of it. 7-a-side, 5-a-side and futsal manage just | fine without the offside rule (admittedly on smaller | pitches). I suspect that 11-a-side would just look different | without offside, it wouldn't be a completely broken game. | your best defenders would still have fair battles with your | best attackers, and midfielders-midfielders etc | ajuc wrote: | Field size makes all the difference. Try to play on full- | size football field for 90 minutes and you start to | understand a lot of weird rules and tactics in football. | permo-w wrote: | I'm saying this from a position of having played plenty | of 11-a-side football in my life | jnsie wrote: | I don't think it would be completely broken, per se, but as | a spectacle I think it would be ruined...Obviously not a | big concern for 7-a-side, 5-a-side, etc. | pmontra wrote: | At least one forward would hang close to the opponent's | goalkeeper, guarded by a defender. Teams would be spread in | length over the pitch. There will probably be many special | strategies. Maybe everybody would be in the box when the | other goalkeeper kicks the ball. That's prevented by | offside now. BTW offside works only in the opponent's half | of the pitch. | owenmarshall wrote: | It wouldn't be a _broken_ game in that it 'd still | function, but I can't imagine it'd be an _enjoyable_ one to | watch. | owenmarshall wrote: | No. A player in an offside position is absolutely allowed to | receive the ball from an opponent who deliberately plays the | ball. | thazework wrote: | As others have said it would not be offside under current | rules, but to answer your question the only realistic way to | defend against an own goal would be time wasting, faking | injury, geberally keeping the ball away from the 16 yard box. | Kuiper wrote: | This brings to mind one of my favorite TV shows, One Outs. It's | about the strategies that a clever and "unsportsmanlike" player | brings to a baseball team, exploiting the rules while violating | the spirit of the game. | | As one example: in order for a baseball game to be considered | valid, both teams must play 5 innings. If the weather is bad and | teams are unable to continue due to rain, a <5 inning game is | considered invalid and scheduled for a later date. If one team is | behind and knows there's a high chance of rain later in the day, | the pitcher can begin drawing out the length of innings by | intentionally giving up hits. (After all, it doesn't matter how | many runs he gives up if the game is canceled.) This, in turn, | gives the opposite incentive to the opposing team's offense, who | _wants_ their runners to be declared "out" so that the inning | can end faster. There's a real-time rules-gaming arms race as | both teams test the bounds of what's legally permissible, driven | by incentives that lead to a very unusual game of baseball. | hn2017 wrote: | Wiki article | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbados_4%E2%80%932_Grenada | | https://bleacherreport.com/articles/74831-barbados-vs-grenad... | | Note this isn't possible in today's rules, afaik | arduinomancer wrote: | > Any goal scored in extra time would count as two goals | | That seems like a really strange rule to have | steveylang wrote: | Yeah, I can't think of a plausible rationale for this rule. | FTA: | | -------------------------------------------- | | No match could end in a draw; if the teams were tied at the end | of regular time, they would go into sudden death extra time. | But! Any goal scored in extra time would count as two goals. | This was presumably done because this tournament, like many, | used goal difference to break ties in the qualifying groups. | (Goal difference = total number of goals they've scored minus | the number of goals they've conceded.) So that extra time | "golden goal" would give a team an edge in the overall | competition. Little did the organisers know that it would also | lead to one of the strangest football games ever seen. | | -------------------------------------------- | | Such a rule has no impact within a game, it doesn't change the | basic premise that a tie game goes to sudden death and next | goal wins. But potentially weird scenarios are actually pretty | easy to think of if you just consider the rule for a couple of | minutes. | permo-w wrote: | something similar could arise even without double goals in | extra time. let's say your opponents have a man sent off, and | you're up by 1 with minutes left to play, but you need 2 or 3 | to qualify. an own-goal to give yourself 30 extra minutes to | score those few goals against a weakened opposition is probably | the best choice | | it's "no draws" rather than "double goals" that creates the | unusual incentive. double goals just exacerbates it | kevinmchugh wrote: | And goal differential as tiebreaker creates an incentive | where just winning isn't enough | permo-w wrote: | I think as long as you can't gain extra time by playing | deliberately badly, this is largely okay? it's good to want | to teams to go out and try to hammer each other rather than | narrowly shithouse a 1-0, as has been very common in recent | major tournaments. even so, a lot of big tournaments have | switched to head-to-head tiebreakers recently | 7373737373 wrote: | One other weird thing: When a soccer player who is not a | goalkeeper prevents a goal by catching the ball with their hands, | they "just" get a red card and the attacking team a penalty, even | if they would have certainly scored otherwise. | | Luis Suarez successfully used this in the 2010 World Cup quarter- | finals in the Uruguay vs Ghana game: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM-29hy-Qyw - Ghana missed the | penalty, which led to a penalty shootout, which Uruguay won. | | Skimming through the laws of the game | (https://downloads.theifab.com/downloads/laws-of-the-game-202...) | I do wonder whether a trainer and up to 4 other players (because | a team which can field less than 7 players forfeits the game) | climbing on the crossbar until it breaks could be advantageous in | some situation as well since | | > If it cannot be repaired the match must be abandoned. | | Very unsportsmanlike indeed. | smcl wrote: | Interestingly in rugby they have a concept called a "penalty | try" - effectively when there's a particular infringement | against a team in a scoring position, the referee awards the | points to the attacking team as if they had gone ahead and | scored. | | See here for an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAq- | xp54j1w | | The play gets repeated a couple of times and explained in some | detail throughout but you can see what happens in the first few | seconds of the video - blue is about to receive the ball in an | incredibly advantageous position (a couple of steps away from | scoring) white performs a deliberate foul in defending that | play (they deliberately knock it forward and out of play, | without trying to catch it). There's more to it than just "a | very egregious foul against an attacker" but it's a good-enough | simplification for our purposes. | | People are already quite resistant to VAR in football already | (got my own opinions on that) so I think there's virtually zero | chance of football adopting this. But if ever there was an | argument for it, it's definitely that Suarez case in 2010, | Ghana were cheated out of an historic World Cup semifinal | appearance. | DoneWithAllThat wrote: | Exactly the same concept exists in NHL hockey by the way. In | particular, if a player attacking an empty net (because the | goaltender has been pulled late in the game to add another | skater) is interfered with from behind, or a thrown stick | disrupts his shot, the goal is just awarded on the assumption | that the attacker would have almost certainly scored. | fineIllregister wrote: | A similar concept exists in American football, but it is | rarely invoked. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfair_act | golemiprague wrote: | [dead] | permo-w wrote: | the game would be abandoned, but almost certainly it would be a | 3-0 forfeit win to the opposition. perhaps if 3-0 goal | difference was advantageous? | dylan604 wrote: | for those wondering why 3-0, it's based on tournament points | scoring. you get 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, a | point for each goal (maximum of 3 points for goals) per game, | and an additional point for the shutout. so, each game in | tournament scoring is worth 7 points. after all of those | points are added, goal differentials can come into | consideration for tie breakers. | smcl wrote: | Unless you're talking about some _extremely_ niche | tournament, that 's not how it works at all, in football at | least. In the majority of league systems you get 3 points | for a win, 1 point for a draw and _that 's it_. If you are | level on points with another team in your group after all | games are played then there will be strictly defined rules | for that tournament to separate the teams, often a | combination of the following in some order of precedence: | | - head-to-head results between tied teams | | - total goal difference, i.e. _sum(goals_scored) - | sum(goals_conceded)_ across all games | | - total goals scored across all games | | - disciplinary record (number of yellow/red cards awarded | against players) | | If teams still cannot be separated, it'll fall back on | something as simple and cruel as a coin-toss - though maybe | they could go to extra time and penalties if the tied teams | are playing each other in the last game. Maybe you're | thinking of situations like rugby where you can get a | "bonus point" games in group stages by scoring 4 tries or | keeping the losing margin down to a handful of points. | | In any case, I can't give a good reason as to why 3-0 is | usually the score given for a walkover - I think it's just | generally considered to be a convincing win that isn't too | over-the-top. | dylan604 wrote: | Throughout my life, I've been a player, coach, and | referee. In each of those roles, I have been in | tournaments where this was the way the tournament was | scored. | | Edit: >though maybe they could go to extra time and | penalties | | As a referee, when a tournament is on the last day, it is | not uncommon to hear various tournament officials saying | within earshot of the refs "we need winners". This is of | course a plausible deniability way of saying "be generous | with penalties". | Denvercoder9 wrote: | > Throughout my life, I've been a player, coach, and | referee. In each of those roles, I have been in | tournaments where this was the way the tournament was | scored. | | Where? I've never seen or heard of this scoring system | being used in continental Europe (not even in the little | kids leagues), and it's also not what's used in the | professional tournaments (World Cup, Euros, Copa America, | Champions League, etc). | LanceH wrote: | He's not talking pro leagues, but the kinds of leagues | where you make a team and sign up for a weekend | tournament. That scoring system is very common. | dylan604 wrote: | Too right. You think if I played, coached, and refereed | in a professional league, I'd be spending my time reading | HN? ha! | smcl wrote: | GP mentioned this though: | | > not even in the little kids leagues | | It might just be something that is very common | _somewhere_ or at some level (dunno where), but it 's | pretty alien to the pair of us and would be for most/all | of continental Europe at the very least. | drowsspa wrote: | Is it? I'm Brazilian and I never heard of it. | jamiek88 wrote: | I'm English and I haven't either. | | I've also played in UK, Middle East, Spain, France, USA | and Canada. | | From organized leagues to games with mates and pub type | tournaments and have never come across that convoluted | system. | drowsspa wrote: | That must be very US-specific, it just sounds American. | But the 3 point thing definitely has nothing to do with | this oddity of scoring | dylan604 wrote: | then why not 1-0 scores? | smcl wrote: | It's a good question but I don't think there's any good | answer other than "1-0 or 2-0 doesn't feel like | punishment enough". Interesingly, for two-legged cup | competitions a forfeit likely won't result in a 3-0 loss, | but a disqualification instead. So if you're winning 4-0 | or 5-0 and can't be bothered showing up for the return | fixture, you can't just forfeit and win 4-3 or 5-3 on | aggregate, you have to fulfil the fixture. | | And additionally, not showing up for a game might not | even cause you to forfeit. Estonia didn't turn up to a | European Qualifier against my national team, we didn't | get a walkover and had to replay (which we won 1-0): http | s://twitter.com/90sfootball/status/1297216969326780416 | dylan604 wrote: | I've officiated games where the weather was lousy (our | leagues are pretty fair weathered) and one team was | heading for state championship and the opposing team was | just getting slaughtered (double digit to nil at half). | League rules say if the game was abandoned in the first | half, the game must be replayed. _NOBODY_ wanted that | (plus there was no room left in schedule), so as agreed | by both teams immediately after bringing the first half | to an end, the teams switched sides, the second half was | started and immediately abandoned due to inclement | weather. Since it was in the second half, the score stood | as final. | smcl wrote: | In what country and in what sport? Was it younger kids, | maybe? I'm not doubting you, I'm genuinely curious | because this is incredibly bizarre to me. I dug around on | wikipedia and found a couple of dozen examples of some | unusual points scoring given[0] but only a handful of | smaller US leagues long in the past featured this bonus- | points-per-goal system, and seemingly only ever for a | short period (experiment?) | | Thinking about it, bonus points are maybe a fun way to | spice up small-sided games. I think there'd be uproar if | it was considered for anything beyond that though :) | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_tournament_rankin | g_syste... | dylan604 wrote: | Between actually getting work done and looking for a way | to provide an answer, I've had a hard time getting a link | to send. | | The closest I've come is a scoring method called 10 Point | System where it's slight different in W=6 points, D=3 | points, bonus point per goal (max 3), bonus point for | shut out. So I could have mis-remembered the points I | initially stated. It's been 10+ years since I've | participated in those tourneys. | | The world is a much bigger place than central Europe and | people do things differently in those other places. Not | everyone plays with the exact rules like those house | rules in Monopoly. In UIL soccer (governing body for | Texas High School sports), the rules get totally goofy. | First, the center referee has to make hand signals | similar to American Football refs by winding the clock to | indicate to the clock operator to start the clock, | crossing the arms above their head to indicate to _STOP_ | the clock (WTF!!), free substitution so a player can be | brought back onto the field after being subbed off, | players must be subbed when issued a yellow card and | allowed to come back on at a later time (thought to allow | teenagers to cool down before escalating hormones get the | better of them), indirect free kicks awarded to team in | possession in lieu of drop ball restarts. Those are the | main ones that I remember. Oh, and in UIL, there is a | referee system called Duals where you have 2 officials on | the field and both have whistles. They each run a | diagonal system in their respective half. This is used | when not enough officials are available to do the | traditional center + 2 assistants | drowsspa wrote: | I think the lesson here is just "American-specific | rules", not "Central Europe specific rules". In Latin | America I never heard of it either | smcl wrote: | The user also made another comment detailing some | interesting reasons why some rules may have come about. | Definitely some interesting stuff, even if I don't think | it'd be too palatable back home. | smcl wrote: | That's cool, I had absolutely no idea! So while I may | have suggested in other comments that I didn't love | European FAs fiddling with the offside rule and VAR, I do | appreciate a bit of innovation and creativity and it | sounds like the US is willing to experiment which is | great to see. I happily retract my earlier confident | assertion about how points work in groups/leagues :) | | On another note, I've really enjoyed seeing the game over | there going from strength to strength, I hope you're | enjoying it too and continue to stay involved at some | level! | dylan604 wrote: | Just to tack on more as I've knocked some cobwebs loose, | the UIL also did their penalty shoot outs similar to | hockey where the ball was put in play some 20 yards out | and the attacker allowed to dribble the ball and the | keeper was allowed to challenge. In the early days of the | MLS, they did this as well. When MLS did away with that | non-sense, the UIL followed as well. | | US Soccer (official FIFA member) was apparently so | concerned that soccer would not be accepted that they | were willing to experiment with rules to make things more | "exciting". UIL did things because Texas is just so | entrenched with Friday Night Lights football, that things | had to be brought into alignment with their understanding | (tongue planted firmly in cheek). After all, it is using | their field! Also, the organization of officials in UIL | sports (Texas Association of Sports Officials - TASO) is | kind of weird. Once you become an official of one sport, | you can easily become an official of another sport with | no experience necessary. Naturally, a lot of the | throwball referees crossed over to football officiating | in the early days. As the UIL game garnered more respect, | better officials started to make their way, but the rules | are still some mishmash hybrid gene spliced 100% GMO'd | version. | smcl wrote: | Ahhh I see, so some of the experiments might have not | even been deliberate in the end. Either way that's an | interesting bit of history, I'm glad to have learned | about it! | | I'm about to re-enter the game aged 37 years old (not | played in ~1.5 yrs) this weekend with trials for a little | local very-very minor team here. No idea how it'll go but | I'm curious to see if my legs can carry me for one more | season :D | dylan604 wrote: | it was never the legs that failed, but it was always the | gut/diaphragm. as a defender, i'd make sure that the run | we're about to make when that ball comes over the top was | done at my pace using all of the dark arts i could | muster. | | good luck! ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-06-01 23:00 UTC)