<p>Leanid, here’s another thought - basketball was invented in the US, yet when it is played in the Olympics, rules that are used in Europe are used. Based on your assertion that the inventing country gets to make the rules for all time, is this fair?</p>
<p>“Not really. My only position is that (and I repeat) IF they want to attract the American audience they should consider rules changes. If not, let them do whatever they want. The arrogance comes to play when you want me to change my preferences to like a sport that I don’t enjoy watching just because they invented it.”</p>
<p>Fundingfather, soccer does not have much trouble finding an audience that … appreciates the game for what it is.</p>
<p>neither does championship bowling ;)</p>
<p>Does championship bowling attract a worldwide audience topping one billion?</p>
<p>I am talking about US audiences. If you want soccer to be accepted by mega-US audiences you need to change the rules. If you are willing to, as xiggi says, appeal to the subset of Americans that appreciate it for what it is then that is fine also. Just that those Americans are going to get short-changed because they have to compete for TV time with bowling and Texas Hold’m Poker.</p>
<p>or NASCAR as evidenced by Formula1 and Bernie having limited success again in US market.</p>
<p>ff,</p>
<p>No it is not fair, the rules for basketball should be the same regardless of the venue.</p>
<p>Okay, you have an opinion that “IF they want to attract…they should consider rules changes”. Fine – And MY opinion is that it would not hurt us Americans to learn the game better – AS IT IS, thus gaining far more appreciation of it and by happy coincidence make us let inclined to want to change it.</p>
<p>Point taken on not losing any sleep over not being a world power in soccer, badminton or table tennis. After all, we only want to be a world power where it counts, don’t we ff?</p>
<p>soccer & Formula1 both are quite successful worldwide but not in USA.</p>
<p>hey leanid (or anyone else, for that matter) – forget about which country you live in or which country you were born in as well as who gets to create the rules. Do you think that the current penalty kick shootout is the best solution to breaking a tie game after two overtime periods? If yes, why? If not, do you have an opinion regarding any more appropriate methods to settle the score? Or would you even settle for a simple tie?</p>
<p>I don’t like PKs. I suspect FIFA would like to come up with a better way of ending a game. </p>
<p>However, if you are playing for a championship, can a tie be allowed? Or do you have to resort to a point system? </p>
<p>I agree, too, that the on-field dramatics are getting tiresome. I still like soccer a whole lot more than American football. That’s a taste I can’t seem to acquire, and neither does much of the rest of the world.</p>
<p>A tie, in my opinion, would be the absolute worst. I’m just really curious to hear anyone’s reasoning on why PKs are the “best” approach to crowning one team a champion over another…and yes, I do understand that not ALL games end up in ties + PKs</p>
<p>I suppose one could propose a series. ie more than ONE final game. That is a possible solution. Three games I suppose being the least number??</p>
<p>A baseball game goes on forever if it’s tied: I really liked the comment earlier that there’s no “home run derby” to decide the winner, which would be quite bogus.</p>
<p>I’ve tried, for years, to get excited about soccer/football. I just can’t do it. I sat in my hotel room or in the lounge with a lot of Europeans the last couple weeks, watching the World Cup matches, and I saw impressive stamina and some considerable athleticism in some of the athletes, but the game just doesn’t grab me. I find it boring. Baseball on the other hand, fascinates me and I’d be happy watching a baseball game almost any time. Maybe it’s cultural. I just can’t get excited about soccer, and the PK solution to ending games turns me off. I guess I’ll make a poor European. (But surely there are <em>some</em> who aren’t fans, yes??)</p>
<p>Yup, another game the next day so that players can go all out again was one of the better solutions I’ve considered.</p>
<p>Zidane is obviously aware that soccer simply is not catching on in the US, and he is really desperate to get into the US TV market. He is apparently not much of a NASCAR driver, so he was trying to demonstrate that he has the head butt down. I predict a future in WWF (which is about as much fun to watch as soccer, except it is a little less fake than a World Cup forward taking a dive).</p>
<p>Here is my opinion, since you asked: I would be in favor of a tie, if after regulation the game were tied. I do not like overtimes because they imply that the prescribed length of time for a game is not enough if no one is ahead, so that the all important end is WINNING rather than the purer end of simply competing. Sometimes in life there is no winner and there is no loser, there is just a well fought (and sometimes not so well) effort from both sides. Why MUST one side win and the other lose? It is too arbitrary.</p>
<p>“I am talking about US audiences. If you want soccer to be accepted by mega-US audiences you need to change the rules.”</p>
<p>I could not disagree more. Tailoring games for US audiences is nothing but a cancer for the sport itself. It is easy to understand that the commercial aspects of mainstream television is a necessary evil, but have we not reached an absolute level in what is acceptable? One hout sitcom is down to about 22 minutes or real TV. The remaining is all about commercial interference. I love football, but I still get frustrated with the commercial breaks after each touchdown -with the breaks before and after the kicks. I love basketball, but do we really need to see how the last 4 minutes of a basketball game take 45 minutes? I like baseball, but for most games one could fast forward through the first seven innings and be fine. </p>
<p>Sports for american audience? Is there ANYTHING more boring, annoying, or silly than watching NASCAR? Yet, 200,000 people do not hesitate to drive to sit in sweltering heat hoping for … nice crashes. Do the same people watch the olympics swimming events hoping to see a racer drown? </p>
<p>Behind the pejorative tone of my post rests a simple truth: people like different things and different formats. However, soccer remains THE biggest sport in the world and the biggest denominator among people. It has reached and maintained its status because of its beautiful simplicity as well as its staunch conservative approach to proposed rule changes, and especially the utterly moronic proposals that mostly come from the United States. This is the country that would like to abolish keeping scores in youth games, or want to see players wearing protective headgear -just as if our experience with the other football was a wonderful example for the prevention of injuries!</p>
<p>The FIFA has maintained the development of the sports on a remarkable course. They do not have to learn ANYTHING form the NFL, NHL, or NBA when it comes to studying rule changes. They do utilize second and third divisions to introduce and evaluate new concepts such as different offside rules, kicking in the ball instead of throwing in, and some downright dumb ideas such as increasing the size of the goals. People who KNOW and understand the rules can appreciate how subtle changes -such as the prohibition to pass the ball back to the goalkeeper- have been incorporated over time. </p>
<p>As far as PKs, FIFA has used different strategies to decide the final outcome of games, and none are universally appreciated. Losing on PK can be hard, no less than losing on a gllden goal, or via some arcane mathematical tiebreakers. That is simply part of the game and not only a soccer issue: is everyone happy with the tie-breakers in tennis? Nope! What about NCAA football?</p>
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Do you disagree meaning that you would not want the rules changed or are you disagreeing with the premise that rules changes are required before soccer has any chance of attracting mass American audiences? If the later, I think you are wrong. I remember co-workers claiming that soccer would overtake football and baseball as American pastimes based upon the huge popularity of youth soccer. The claim was that as these kids grew up they would all want to watch soccer. Well, those “kids” are now in their 40’s and soccer is less of a national pastime now than it was then (back then, at least the US had attracted Pele to come play in the States.)</p>
<p>A fun article on the subject in the Star Ledger, by Paul Mulshine:</p>
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<p>Read the whole article, it’s worth it, at this link: <a href=“http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/mulshine/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/1150952414260560.xml&coll=1[/url]”>http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/mulshine/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/1150952414260560.xml&coll=1</a></p>
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<p>At least those sports require utilization of the basic skills and rules of the game that got them to be to the point where they were tied. A corresponding rule change for tennis would be to limit the game to serving only - each player gets 6 serves and the one with the most aces wins. In football, it would be each team brings out their QB, punter and kicker and the one team that can have the best combination of longest throws, punts and fieldgoals wins.</p>