World Cup GDT: June 24th

[Red]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

I don't want to change the rules. But if you wonder why North Americans put soccer squarely in the niche sport category (and to be fair, so is hockey in America), well this is why. It's so much about North American fans "not getting it", it's about them not liking it.



So you watch sports for proper interpretation of the rules? Alrighty then. I prefer watching the players determine the outcome but thats just me

Isn't that what happened? Guy gets opened, has a great scoring chance but gets tripped. Penalty, goal, game over.

Or would you prefer that the guy got gets tripped and denied a sure goal with no punishment to the defenseman? That would make for a fun sport.

[19Yzerman19]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

I don't want to change the rules. But if you wonder why North Americans put soccer squarely in the niche sport category (and to be fair, so is hockey in America), well this is why. It's so much about North American fans "not getting it", it's about them not liking it.

You have massively misdiagnosed this. The reason it's not big in North America is that the best football in the world is played elsewhere. Unless you want to watch games at odd times, and have access to specialized channels, you won't see it. Only lately has it become a bit more accessible, and popularity is I believe the fastest-growing among all sports in North America. As the MLS improves as a league, popularity will continue to increase, leading to more exposure (i.e. easier to find on TV), leading to increased popularity. Give it a couple of decades, technology is really driving the sport's popularity.

So you watch sports for proper interpretation of the rules? Alrighty then. I prefer watching the players determine the outcome but thats just me

When the rules are called properly the players ARE determining the outcome. A referee refusing to enforce them is interfering in that outcome. You basically want a storyline finish that accords with you expectations in spite of what's fair? Go watch a Disney movie.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by 19Yzerman19

You basically want a storyline finish that accords with you expectations in spite of what's fair? Go watch a Disney movie.

... isn't a penalty shot pretty much the prototypical Disney sports ending?

At least the first two Mighty Ducks movies ended that way.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Red

According to whom?

Be honest here, hockey is a very marginal sport world wide.

I didn't say it's the biggest sport in the world did I?

[PIMking]

Originally Posted by Bagor

Frings

Yeah I was at work and hyper typing before I got caught

[Bagor]

Originally Posted by scottish_flame

Rules are rules. If you trip someone up in the box it's a penalty. Maybe the penalties aren't so major in hockey but that's the way it is.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that's the way it has to be always. He's got a decent point though. Penalties ARE too easy to convert and it's not a massive rule change to move the spot back a couple of yards. More excitement and more skill involved.
Rules have been changed before, I'm sure you can remember snoozing through games where defenders passed the ball to the goalie , he picked it up. Rolled it back, and repeat.

[GirlySports]

But if you move the spot back you have to move the semi circle back too which makes it ugly and lopsided.

In 2010 penalties were only converted 9 out 15 times.

[PIMking]

I am still in shock that someone who likes baseball hates soccer..

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

I don't want to change the rules. But if you wonder why North Americans put soccer squarely in the niche sport category (and to be fair, so is hockey in America), well this is why. It's so much about North American fans "not getting it", it's about them not liking it.

No one wondered.
You decided it was your mission to enter the World Cup thread and tell us. The 95% of global sports fans who like soccer, were not asking.

[Red]

Originally Posted by Bagor

But that doesn't necessarily mean that's the way it has to be always. He's got a decent point though. Penalties ARE too easy to convert and it's not a massive rule change to move the spot back a couple of yards. More excitement and more skill involved.
Rules have been changed before, I'm sure you can remember snoozing through games where defenders passed the ball to the goalie , he picked it up. Rolled it back, and repeat.

]

Its no different when you are inside the box during play, if you have a clear shot you usually score. Tit for tat.

When a puck is rolling towards the net with nothing to stop it, but a D man gloves it you get a PS. What are the chances that you score with the goalie in? Is it fair that you traded a 100% goal for a 25% PS? Is that what we want in soccer?

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by 19Yzerman19

You have massively misdiagnosed this. The reason it's not big in North America is that the best football in the world is played elsewhere. Unless you want to watch games at odd times, and have access to specialized channels, you won't see it. Only lately has it become a bit more accessible, and popularity is I believe the fastest-growing among all sports in North America. As the MLS improves as a league, popularity will continue to increase, leading to more exposure (i.e. easier to find on TV), leading to increased popularity. Give it a couple of decades, technology is really driving the sport's popularity.

When the rules are called properly the players ARE determining the outcome. A referee refusing to enforce them is interfering in that outcome. You basically want a storyline finish that accords with you expectations in spite of what's fair? Go watch a Disney movie.

The first part isn't entire accurate. The NBA is massive overseas (even saw a Durant jersey in the crowd today), particularly in Asia where time difference is most extreme. The NBA has done a good job of marketing it's stars so it can be done. Baseball is huge in Japan as well and obviously hockey in Europe.

I think one thing that could help soccer would have a better chance of being popular here if there were a superleague (and not Champions League, a full time league) with the majority of the best players in the world. The other thing would be more athletes from here being the elite of the elite, but that's not gonna happen for a while, maybe ever, because our best athletes choose to play football and hockey and baseball and basketball first, and I don't see that changing for many, many years.

The second part is why the NHL Playoffs are what they are though. You talk about "the other things" (I'll assume them to be emotion, grit, heart, toughness etc...) that are great but that the playoff calls (i.e non-calls) don't ruin much. But if the game isn't called the playoffs way, the other things aren't as prevelant. Like if the call today had gone the other way and it was no penalty, would there be a massive uproar? Only from Greece fans. Not many would have complained about that.

[Bagor]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

But if you move the spot back you have to move the semi circle back too which makes it ugly and lopsided.

In 2010 penalties were only converted 9 out 15 times.

Who cares what the pitch looks like?
And taking a bigger sample size. The last PL was 73/87, the one before 68/86. It's far too easy.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Bagor

But that doesn't necessarily mean that's the way it has to be always. He's got a decent point though. Penalties ARE too easy to convert and it's not a massive rule change to move the spot back a couple of yards. More excitement and more skill involved.

On average about 75% of penalty kicks go in. The number drops lower in high pressure situations, so World Cups for generally have a bit lower success rates.

I think the difficulty is about right for soccer.

This tournament has so far seen a very high success rate, but you don't change the rules just because of that.

[19Yzerman19]

Originally Posted by Bagor

But that doesn't necessarily mean that's the way it has to be always. He's got a decent point though. Penalties ARE too easy to convert and it's not a massive rule change to move the spot back a couple of yards. More excitement and more skill involved.

In this particular case, the penalty roughly approximated the chance he would have had if not for the foul - a reasonably clear shot at goal from a few feet left of the penalty dot. To the extent the penalty was a slightly better probability proposition, that's probably okay, given that it's awarded to penalize the team committing the foul.

Originally Posted by Itse

... isn't a penalty shot pretty much the prototypical Disney sports ending? At least the first two Mighty Ducks movies ended that way.

Wasn't the second one a shootout?

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

No one wondered.
You decided it was your mission to enter the World Cup thread and tell us. The 95% of global sports fans who like soccer, were not asking.

The funny thing is outside the first Brazil game and a few scattered games, this has been probably the best World Cup I've seen (dating back to 1990). But I don't know how anyone can say today wasn't bad for reinforcing the bad things people think about soccer. Between Suarez being Suarez and this, even if this call is100% to the letter of the rule, the reactions from non-soccer fans are mostly what you'd expect. If you wanna see the game grow in North America stuff like this doesn't help.

[Bagor]

Originally Posted by Red

Its no different when you are inside the box during play, if you have a clear shot you usually score. Tit for tat.

Are you making the point that most penalties awarded in soccer would have resulted in goals anyways? If so, I disagree.

Originally Posted by Itse

On average about 70-75% of penalty kicks go in. The numbers drop even lower in high pressure situations like this. World Cups for example generally have lower success rates.

I think the difficulty is about right for soccer.

This tournament has so far seen a very high success rate, but you don't change the rules just because of that.

About 80-84% from my previous post, admittedly based off a sample size of two PL seasons.

I'm not bothered to be honest, but I'm just saying that if the spot was moved back a couple of yards and made more difficult I would have no issues with it.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Bagor

The last PL was 73/87, the one before 68/86. It's far too easy.

Based on what?

I really don't see the problem with those numbers.

[19Yzerman19]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

The second part is why the NHL Playoffs are what they are though. You talk about "the other things" (I'll assume them to be emotion, grit, heart, toughness etc...) that are great but that the playoff calls (i.e non-calls) don't ruin much. But if the game isn't called the playoffs way, the other things aren't as prevelant. Like if the call today had gone the other way and it was no penalty, would there be a massive uproar? Only from Greece fans. Not many would have complained about that.

Emotion, grit, heart, toughness? Yeah some of those storylines are great, but the main thing about the playoffs is the super high quality hockey. It consists of the best teams trying as hard as they possibly can and often finding another unexpected gear. Kings / Hawks was, let's be honest, not a particularly gritty, toughness-filled series compared to many, but it might have been the best playoff series in a decade because of how damned GOOD the teams were, how experienced they were under pressure, and how hard they played. Nothing in that series would have been affected by calling penalties correctly and consistently, and really the refereeing on the whole wasn't bad in those 7 games.

I think it would have been a minor controversy... the reason there might not have been much uproar is that very few people care about these teams. If it had been England or Brazil or France? No one would have shut up about it for a week. Even so, this is silly; you want a ref to decide not to make a call on the basis that it won't cause a massive uproar? I continue to be absolutely baffled by your line of thought.

[Itse]

Here's some stats. Some of it is actually somewhat interesting to read:

This has the average of several leagues at 76.8

Here it is mentioned that a goalie will have as high as 1/3 chance of making a save if he remains stationary.



Here's a lot of research into penalty shootouts.

I think the most interesting part is that in "sudden death" shots the success rate is only about 65%.

Based on my years of watching soccer, I would say that sounds about right for these kinds of extreme pressure penalty kicks. It's not as easy as it sounds.

Yes, to some extent it's more a game of nerves than a game of skill. But that's part of the attraction.

[Bagor]

Originally Posted by Itse

Based on what?

I really don't see the problem with those numbers.

Based on the numbers I presented. 80+% suggests the penalty highly favors the taker.
Why not move it back and even the odds a bit and at the same time add a bit more excitement?