Short followup 3: Power plays in soccer?

I did a little searching around and found a couple of things related to the idea of power plays in soccer.

Why Americans don't like soccer (from the Huffington Post, by Richard Greene)

Take the best of The World Cup teams, the Group winners -- Uruguay, Argentina, United States, Germany, Netherlands, Paraguay, Brazil and Spain. These eight elite "sides" had, according to Match Analysis, an average of 656 touches per-game for each team. How many of these 656 touches per-game do you think turned into a shot on goal, an actual chance to score? An anemic 6.3 in a 90 minute contest. Argentina has been -- by far -- the most aggressive offensive team, taking an average of 9.7 shots on goal per game. Argentina averages 753 touches per-game. So, that means the most aggressive scoring threat in World Cup soccer attempts a shot on goal 1.28% of the time it touches the ball.

I don't know about you, but for me that's not must-see TV. And these are the best teams in the World Cup tournament that shoot at the goal 1% of the time. The least successful teams in the competition -- usually referred to as the worst teams -- Honduras and New Zealand, averaged 469 and 453 touches per-game respectively with a whopping production of only 1 shot on goal per game. Yes, one shot!

Argentina and Portugal lead the 32 World Cup teams in scoring. Each has averaged 2.3 goals per game. Slightly more than a third of the teams -- 11 of 32 -- averaged less than one goal per game. One team, Honduras, played their entire schedule of games without making a single goal. They never got even one ball in the net! Exactly half the teams -- 16 of 32 - allowed less than one goal per game to be scored against them. The "sides" of Portugal and Uruguay are yet to be scored on. They have allowed opposing "sides" an average of 629 touches per-game, but zero goals.

American sports fans just don't want to see a team have possession of the ball 629 times in a game and only get off one or two shots on goal. And not score at all. Boring.

And this analysis of man-advantage situations in soccer:

Soccer: just how damaging is it to get a man sent off?

There's statistics attached in the accompanying tables, which I haven't quite figured out yet. They are derived from four years of English Premier League play. So I'll take these two statements as a good summary:

"As you can see, when a team is down a man, a team's shot rate drops somewhat (32% for home teams, 13% for visitors) while shots allowed go way up (42% at home, 73% on the road)"

and

"Interestingly, the home team always has a higher shooting percentage, regardless of the game state. When the home team is a man up, they were almost twice as likely to score as at 11-a-side."

(If I read the table correctly, at 11-11 the home team scores 1.4 goals, and 11-10 it scores 2.63 goals. For visitors, it's 0.99 goals at 11-11, and 1.84 goals at 10-11, also a substantial increase. And it's also interesting how significant the home-field advantage is. There should be less of a home field advantage in a World Cup tournament, played at neutral sites, except for the host.)

This little article makes my point. Two-minute power plays in soccer would slightly increase scoring chances. But soccer needs that; even the commentators who played and loved the game didn't like "artless" soccer, which means emphasis on defense, one-dimensional offense, and low scoring.

The thing is, this idea won't happen. I know that. But you know what? I actually will suggest this to the MLS. Why not be innovative -- attract more crowds -- and maybe start a change to the game for the better?