As long as we are talking heresies, I would get rid of the offsides rule. Right now a fast break is practically impossible. We constantly see defenses choke off what was shaping up to be a thrilling fast break by jumping forward to render offsides the offensive players racing downfield in anticipation of a pass. Nothing would open up the offense like a fast break.
First, eliminating offsides may or may not increase scoring. Defensive tactics would change for sure. You would have players not attacking but defending the goal. So, a bunch of players would just hang around the goal. That doesn’t sound great to me.
But how would this sound? Maybe we can get Wide Receivers in American Football to just hang around or in the end zone. Why bother lining up at scrimmage? That would increase scoring in football. no?
It’s the most popular sport in the world, I don’t think it needs to change at least that drastically. Amercians. Sheesh. ;))
Speaking of flops… X_X
France’s young star pulls an “Erika” today against Uruguay.
https://sports.yahoo.com/kylian-mbappe-one-neymar-flop-theatrics-vs-uruguay-154205789.html
@Scipio, I think what we’d see is a couple of players relegated to standing in front of the goal, essentially removed from play in order to prevent the ball being lofted over everyone’s head to a single player who is relegated to standing in front of the opposition’s goal in hopes of receiving such a pass. Not very interesting TMM.
Oops, I’d like to address this comment. College soccer alllows for more substitution, but I don’t want to get too far down in the weeds. Generally, more substitution leads to:
a) Poorer quality of play. I’m fortunate that I get to watch both the Stanford and Cal men and women play each season. And college rosters get weak(er) after the starting 11. Even the Stanford women’s and men’s teams, both defending national champions, have weak(er) benches.
b) Trust me on this, coaching isn’t always that great and now you’re letting the coach make even more decisions. Not good IMO.
c) Substitutions ruin the flow of the game.
Loved the second game. Really looking forward to Lakaku and Mbappe on the same pitch. Though Mbappe’s flop was ridiculous.
I normally root for Brazil, but I think Neymar’s flops caught up to him. The Boy Who Cried Foul.
Idea of golden goal was mentioned, rather than playing out 2 additional 15 minute periods. College does golden goal in certain contexts (tournament play, I think), and it is very unsatisfying – a bad touch, in an instant, can decide the game. Playing a mini game makes more sense, from my perspective, as it allows for each side to build, pressure, defend etc.
The golden goal itself doesn’t solve anything. Has anyone scored in extra periods in this World Cup? There haven’t been any games that would have ended differently with a golden goal rule. If you are trying to avoid coming down to penalty kicks (which I think would be a good thing), it’s more important to create more goal-scoring opportunities than to make one goal decisive. That’s why I was proposing seven-on-seven, or something like that. There would be a lot of shots on goal in a seven-on-seven game, but fundamentally everyone would still be playing soccer.
I’m not impressed by the one-bad-touch argument. Right now, if anyone actually scored in extra periods, bad touch, own goal, soft penalty, whatever, that would be damn near decisive. In fact, at least at the international level, almost any goal is damn near decisive, no matter how crappy it is, and if it’s not decisive then it’s certainly very close. England is playing in the quarterfinals, and in its last game it had how many shots on goal? One? It got a lucky penalty kick awarded in the game on a play where no one on the English side did anything close to creating a scoring opportunity, and then it won the penalty kick contest at the end. If Colombia hadn’t scored its great last-minute goal, England’s penalty kick would have won the game outright.
I’m also not impressed with the substitutes break up the flow argument. The flow gets broken up plenty; subs can come on when that happens anyway.
And if substitutes are so weak, why are they scoring all the goals within minutes of coming in?
“@Scipio, I think what we’d see is a couple of players relegated to standing in front of the goal, essentially removed from play in order to prevent the ball being lofted over everyone’s head to a single player who is relegated to standing in front of the opposition’s goal in hopes of receiving such a pass.”
Why should we see that? We don’t see it in basketball. When the ball is at one end of the court normally everybody is down at that end either attacking or defending. Except for the goaltenders staying put, why shouldn’t it be that way in soccer? On either offense or defense, how can teams afford to have a bunch of players standing around doing nothing at the far end of the pitch? They would be accomplishing nothing except weakening their team in the vicinity of the ball. The action is going to be at the end of the pitch where the ball is.
Soccer substitution is not like hockey substitutions. If you watched the 2nd half of the Brazil-Belgium game, for example, substitutions took an enormous amount of time, since the players must come off the field before the sub goes in. And as the sub of the team currently in the lead, then you walk very sloooowly. Other stoppages just aren’t in the same category in terms of time wasted.
Regarding weak benches, there’s a HUGE difference between 3 substitutions (there’s a 4th sub allowed in extra time for just the KO stage) and mass substitutions, which someone up thread had mentioned. Bottom line, when you get deeper into the bench, the play isn’t as good. Simple, the starters are the best, the bench is the rest.
There are a few subs who would/should start the game, but for changing alignments or other reasons. Subs scoring so many goals? I thought you or someone else up thread were arguing that there haven’t been many goals at all. Yes, the one sub who scored that comes to immediately to mind is the tall frizzy-haired player on the Belgium squad, Marouane Fellaini.
“As long as we are talking heresies, I would get rid of the offsides rule”
Yikes. Just no. It would ruin the game IMO. Lots of long ball soccer like a bad middle school team.
3 minutes after he was subbed in yesterday, Renato Augusto scored Brazil’s only goal.
Benches are always weaker, by defintion, in every sport, especially as you get further and further down the bench. A couple top subs from the bench doesn’t change my mind, nor the rest of the sporting world’s mind. 
Three subs are allowed per game, except in the WC knockout matches, where a 4th sub is allowed in extra time. Three or four subs isn’t considered “deep” into the bench. Deeper into the bench will weaken play.
Once Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson are subbed out for the Golden State Warriors, the bench players still score, but the quality of play obviously gets weaker.
Moving on. England wins 2-0 over Sweden. Great match. Russia-Croatia next. Not an exciting matchup, since both teams have a “bunker” mentality.
Basketball and soccer are very different games. You rarely see everyone on attack or defense, usually only right at the end of a game when the losing team throws everyone on the attack. The field is just too big for everyone to play both offense and defense.
Basketball has its own rule-the 3 second rule-to prevent players from standing under the basket waiting for a pass.
@sushiritto : The Warriors “B” team often increases the lead. B-)
@Scipio : The two “halves” of the Belgium team have no problems with each other, Most of them play in so many different countries that they are totally above the prejudices you appear to be trying to attribute to the country.
As I keep telling everyone, this is our year.
Come on England! :)>-
I think that was one of the best games I have seen them play in years! Go Lions!!
And [edit] I am surprised at how relatively clean the Russia-Croatia match has been so far [66:50] compared to both teams prior matches.
Hmmm, that must be the reason why in the playoffs, the 4 all stars (Curry, Durant, Thompson and Green) played 40+ minutes (typically low 30’s), because the bench was so wonderful. 
The bench was awful. Not many shooters in this crowd: Livingston, Young, Iguodala, West, Cook, McGee, Looney, Pachulia, Jones, etc. Bad. :-q
I’m so happy Croatia won!!! What a nail biter. #:-S
Hope they beat England, too.