Making soccer better

Is it necessary to try to improve a sport that is watched and played so much around the world? What is probably the most popular sport in the world?

I say yes.

The recent noteworthy officiating gaffes at the World Cup made me lose some interest. A succession of 1-0 results and elimination matches decided by penalty kicks made me lose more interest. Nonetheless, I watched most of the final, and had I been informed that the winning goal would take place 116 minutes into it, I would have done other things, watched the near-miss highlights on ESPN, and tuned in about the 110-minute mark or so.

I think soccer/football is a sport a lot like swimming or sailing -- much more fun to do than to watch. Swimming is physically tough, so is track-and-field; much of the appreciation of a fan who has done the sport is due to the knowledge of how difficult it is to train for the events. Sailing is tremendously fun, but from the shore, it's just sails moving back and forth.

Soccer aficionados will exclaim blissfully over a great individual move or a sublime sequence of passing that do nothing except keep the ball under control for awhile longer. Spain was great at that. But with so few goals, the excitement level drops -- AND EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT.

Sooo... I think that the final was rescued by a second yellow card to Heitinga. This gave the World Cup final something that I think that soccer should institute:

A power play.

Both hockey and lacrosse, the two sports most similar to soccer, have power plays, where an assessed penalty results in a player going off the field, leaving one team with a man advantage. (As I review this, I thought of another similar game net-and-ball game with power plays: water polo.) In hockey, these are moments of tremendous high tension. The scorers have more room to maneuver, can take more shots, and the defense of the team that is down has to be creative and courageous. A lot of goals are scored on power-plays; and the man-down goal is also frequently a game-changer.

Now, lacrosse has lots of goal-scoring, almost too much for my taste. (Give the goalie an even bigger scoop on his stick, and note that the indoor leagues have padded up the goalie to the size of a sumo wrestler.) But they also have man-down power plays; this can give a team that's down a chance to catch up with a quick goal.

I considered other ways to "improve" soccer, such as widening the net a little, but that would have one effect of making a penalty kick even more of a sure thing. Power plays would do nothing to hurt the "essence of soccer" -- game flow would not be impeded, the penalized player would just get off the field, the penalty clock would start, and the game would continue. I would assess a man-down penalty on any infraction resulting in a direct kick. What this would do is give the "stars of the show" -- the goal-scorers -- a little more chance to practice their specialty. There'd be a few more goals; I see that as a good thing. With more space to operate for the offense, defenses would have to be less man-on-man and more zone. Coaches would be forced to be creative. And it would also force defenders to be a little more scrupulous. The only downside I see is that it might increase the incidence of taking a dive to try and convince the referee that a foul was really bad. Solution: if the referee sees it as a dive, they get an off-the-field penalty and a yellow card. They'd have to decide if taking the dive was worth the risk.

Now, this still doesn't change the substitution policy, or anything else. The player that gets penalized goes off the field, comes back on the field when the penalty time is expired. He could get a yellow card when necessary. Two yellows equal a red, and a permanent man-down situation, just like now.

I found a database on the final match, but it doesn't distinguish between direct and indirect free kick fouls. Assuming a 3-1 ratio, there were 45 free kicks, so I'd say there were 11 direct kicks. With two-minute penalties, that would be 22 minutes of man-advantage and 68 minutes full-strength. Not bad.

I'll send this idea to FIFA forthwith.

Ha! And one more thing; the championship match should NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER... NEVER end on penalty kicks. They should play 10 hours if they have to. Let them see how deep the bench -- seven of which probably didn't play the whole tournament -- is. Stanley Cup three- or four-overtime games are RIVETING. Soccer should end the championship final penalty kick travesty now.