Football (Soccer) Thread

[FunkMonk]

My problem with issuing cards for dissent is you are expecting players in highly charged and emotional situations to behave like monks. There is a line between disagreeing vehemently with a decision and threatening a referee. I don't think most referees are capable of making this judgment, especially because they themselves are in the middle of these highly charged and emotional matches.

The real solution is having more highly trained referees, but that is more long term. In the short term I am skeptical about these blue cards alleviating problems with cynical fouling and dissent and will probably just give referees more opportunities to make bad judgments.

[Sheilbh]

I also think they should make sure all of the last round of changes are working as planned before making any further changes - like let's get VAR working first

Separately it feels like they're trying to get rid of shithousery which is a real shame. Mad that we may not actually talk about the Messi or Ronaldo games that we watched, but seeing Sergio Ramos before he was made impossible

[Tamas]

VAR has just exposed the sorry state English refereeing is in. They are supposed to be using it for situations which are debatable, not to review everything three times, and then still make the call the referee wants instead of what's clearly on the bloody camera. There's nothing wrong with the concept or the technology, and everything with the referees.

[Barrister]

So I mean this is totally the hockey guy in me coming out, but it always seemed like discipline in soccer was too "all or nothing".  You either got a warning, or you're kicked out of the entire game.  And precisely because the punishment of being kicked out is so severe referees are going to be very cautious about using it.

So introduce the penalty box.  A player is kicked off not for the entire game, but just for a shorter period of time.  So refs will be more willing to use it.

Makes perfect sense to me.

[Sheilbh]

VAR has just exposed the sorry state English refereeing is in. They are supposed to be using it for situations which are debatable, not to review everything three times, and then still make the call the referee wants instead of what's clearly on the bloody camera. There's nothing wrong with the concept or the technology, and everything with the referees.

Sure but my point is fix that first. Like if the referees are not doing that well I'm not sure what adding another element of referee judgement will add.

What we have isn't working - so fix it before doing something new (on the assumption that would work, without having learned any lessons).

[Zoupa]

I like the blue cards and I dislike VAR.

Basically I want drama.

[FunkMonk]

VAR is absolutely disgusting right now. Also they need to implement automatic offside and out-of-bounds technology.

Get technology you have now working right before you start changing the laws of the game!!

Games gone   

[Josquius]

Is is crazy how long var decisions take
You'd think given the long standing use in tennis that the technology should be a lot better.


I do think a temporary red card is a decent idea to try

And I'm still bitter about that dumb Sunderland vs boro "that was a foul!" shout from 10 metres away that warranted a red card.

[Jacob]

I'm a reactionary when it comes to this. Stop fucking around with the rules. Yellow and red worked for our parents, it'll work for us.

[Grey Fox]

It really didn't work for them either.

[Syt]

I'm a reactionary when it comes to this. Stop fucking around with the rules. Yellow and red worked for our parents, it'll work for us.

Yeah, but not all changes are negative. Like the introduction of the back-pass rule. I recall how matches could be in the 80s, with the attacking team passing the ball back and forth in their half, and then passing back to the goalie if an opposing player came near. Goalie picks ball up, spends what felt like five minutes surveying the field and getting his team in position before giving the ball back. Rinse/repeat for 90 minutes.

[Josquius]

I'm a reactionary when it comes to this. Stop fucking around with the rules. Yellow and red worked for our parents, it'll work for us.

Yeah, but not all changes are negative. Like the introduction of the back-pass rule. I recall how matches could be in the 80s, with the attacking team passing the ball back and forth in their half, and then passing back to the goalie if an opposing player came near. Goalie picks ball up, spends what felt like five minutes surveying the field and getting his team in position before giving the ball back. Rinse/repeat for 90 minutes.

Yeah, I think this is one of those things like cultural traditions in general.
We have this idea that the way things are is the way things have always been and we shouldn't mess with it...
But an awful lot of what we know today is actually very modern.
In a similar time period teams only had one substitute.

The big problem with this idea that the current yellow and red system is fine is that historically the bar for what would get you a card was much higher.
Crunching tackles and teams that based their tactics around kicking the shit out of their opponents (Wimbledon) were the norm.
Red cards only came out in truly exceptional circumstances.

These days though... The on paper rules are strictly enforced. Rather than bullying opponents a common way of playing these days seems instead to be almost trolling the opponent and getting them carded.
Red cards get tossed about even for relatively minor infractions. And basically every other foul seems to be a yellow.

Something less than the full nuclear red does seem needed.

[Josephus]

I'm a reactionary when it comes to this. Stop fucking around with the rules. Yellow and red worked for our parents, it'll work for us.

Yeah, but not all changes are negative. Like the introduction of the back-pass rule. I recall how matches could be in the 80s, with the attacking team passing the ball back and forth in their half, and then passing back to the goalie if an opposing player came near. Goalie picks ball up, spends what felt like five minutes surveying the field and getting his team in position before giving the ball back. Rinse/repeat for 90 minutes.

"The Italy strategy"

[Sheilbh]

I'm a reactionary when it comes to this. Stop fucking around with the rules. Yellow and red worked for our parents, it'll work for us.

I was thinking about this actually - the best way of understanding the conservative impulse is to be a sports fan.

I have a WhatsApp chat with some friends on football stuff and it is just nostalgia for players when we were growing up and sepia memories of Serie A (and Football Italia on British TV), plus wanting everyone to stop changing things and, ideally, to bring back the Cup Winners' Cup.

[FunkMonk]

I'm a reactionary when it comes to this. Stop fucking around with the rules. Yellow and red worked for our parents, it'll work for us.

I was thinking about this actually - the best way of understanding the conservative impulse is to be a sports fan.

I have a WhatsApp chat with some friends on football stuff and it is just nostalgia for players when we were growing up and sepia memories of Serie A (and Football Italia on British TV), plus wanting everyone to stop changing things and, ideally, to bring back the Cup Winners' Cup.

Arsenal's only European trophy