How about this for a format? Give the ball to one of the goalies, then you have three minutes to take a shot on goal. If you don’t score, the time runs out or the opposition steals the ball, then the ref blows up and the ball goes to the other goalie for their turn.

A little bit like how American football works, but with soccer. Sound fun?

No

Poor ref.

Poor players and fans.

One of the worst and most pointless ideas I’ve ever heard.

Nope. I’m out.

You could pinch the end from rugby though. Play goes on until the ball goes out of play. I like that.

You could pinch the end from rugby though. Play goes on until the ball goes out of play. I like that.

I’d like to see the rugby yellow card in the round ball game as well. Yellow = ten minutes off. Especially for diving, feigning injury and ANY dissent to the ref.

New rule if I was in charge of FIFA. You can’t be offside in the box if the defending team have an out field player in the box.

I’d like to see the rugby yellow card in the round ball game as well. Yellow = ten minutes off.

Done.

Its being trialed in the lower leagues this season

I like the sound of that!

Christ, that’s like something Alan partridge would come out with.

Why? Would be a laugh to try. It’d prevent 80 mind of passing the ball around midfield which is what you get now.

I’ve never, ever seen a game of 80 mins passing, never mind in the middle of the park.

Give me one example of this, just one, and the stats to prove it……..

molgrips – Member
Why? Would be a laugh to try.

What and turn it into a pantomime? American sports are not something to aspire too, I guess sky would love it as time for a quick add every 3 mins. You have seen rugby league haven’t you, rugby for the hard of understanding.

What and turn it into a pantomime?

Some might say that it already is.

Etc…

What I mean is staged with the life strangled out of it, resulting in nothing but set pieces and making sure the other team has the ball. A good flowing game of football is great to watch, though the 2 clips you posted cover about 30 mins of American football…

A good flowing game is good yes, but they aren’t all like that are they? And the problem with American football is the commercialism, the faff and the way they set up the teams imo.

You lot have no imagination. I’m not suggesting replacing football.

Sorry Molgrips it sounds terrible. What happens if the ball goes out of play?

Problem with the yellow card sin bin in football, is that it is so easy to get yellow carded in football now that you’d end up with 5 v 4.
It’d be good to see it as a 2nd yellow is 10 mins in the sin bin and straight to sin bin for certain offences. Stuff like getting at the ref or linesman, blatant diving, professional fouls that aren’t deemed as an obvious goal scoring opportunity. Then go 3 yellows = red or second sin bin offence would be a red

You lot have no imagination. I’m not suggesting replacing football.

I did imagine it, it sounds crap.

Problem with the yellow card sin bin in football, is that it is so easy to get yellow carded in football now that you’d end up with 5 v 4.

Being down to 10 men may infulence the game a little more there though. Again, yellow for simulation and diving may keep more on their feet – given we can get a replay at the highest level in 20s should allow for a quick review – once the ref has blown then doing the review as he talks to players would be fine.

You wouldnt get 5v4, you dont often get 13 cautions in a game let alone in an overlapping 10 minute period.

You would get a lot of periods of shorthanded play… 11 v 10 etc. The issue there is that as we see when players are sent off ‘it ruined the game’ because the shorthanded team just park the bus and are very good at defending for long periods; 10 mins would be easy. Now repeat that several times…..

There is now a panel that reviews offences after the game, so diving cheats should start to be retrospectively weeded out. While a 20s review sounds good in theory; the problem I’d see there is that it’s often not clearcut (unlike in the gif above). You see it on MotD all the time, 3 ex players split….. ‘there was clear contact’ ‘yes but only because he left a leg dangling to get that contact’ ‘in any case he went down far too easily, just looking for a penalty’…….. to make it one person’s opinion in 20s to avoid disrupting the flow of the game which is one of it’s strengths, you’d get more controversy, not less.

Right way IMHO, let a panel look at it after the event, discuss for as long as it takes and then hand out immediate bans retrospectively so cheats miss future games. May not affect the on field immediately but in time it will because players will then have the onus back on them to stay upright and not risk being called out for diving.

You wouldnt get 5v4, you dont often get 13 cautions in a game let alone in an overlapping 10 minute period.

I may have exaggerated to make a point, but I reckon you get at least 3 per side on average.
Anyway, would we really want to see a player sin binned for celebrating a goal, slightly miss timing a tackle or not getting back 10 yards at a free kick?

Anyway, would we really want to see a player sin binned for celebrating a goal, slightly miss timing a tackle or not getting back 10 yards at a free kick?

Again, flip side how many would over celebrate (they all know what they get booked for) or not get 10 yards (nice marker on the pitch these days)
Yellow cards are rubbish for games at the moment as the team fouled etc. don’t really get much advantage.

Rahem Sterling got a second yellow last week for what the referee deemed as over celebrating a goal.
The fact is I want to see them celebrate like it actually means something.

fine, but he left the pitch and went into the fans which is mandatory yellow. They know it, stay on the green bit.

I’d agree that a sin bin for all yellows is too harsh; as said sometimes a fair attempt at a tackle goes wrong and it’s a yellow. Keep it for the ‘voluntary’ offences. Backchat, kicking the ball away, encroachment, etc., are not generally on the spur of the moment, they are deliberate actions, and it’s them that need firmer action.

I reckon if we combined skeet shooting with football it would be good for both sports.

You wouldn’t see the ball being hogged anymore. 🙂

Sounds like an exercise coaches could use in training. It’d do for that.

I think they should keep the game just as it is – that way we get to keep amazing, free-flowing and exciting matches just like we had on Friday night…

They should make footballers play the game on flying broomsticks.

I’d watch that.

Spice it up a bit with some extra magic flying balls which maybe attack the players or evade capture.

You’d need to give players some sort of bat to defend themselves though.

Honestly, I don’t know where I get these crazy ideas from….

I reckon if we combined skeet shooting with football it would be good for both sports.

Skeet shooting and skydiving.

You’d need to use colourful birds to increase the visibility.

Free fall parrot-shooting.

If I could introduce one rule change in football it would be to stop rugby fans bleating on about how their rules and behaviour are somehow better.

fine, but he left the pitch and went into the fans which is mandatory yellow. They know it, stay on the green bit.

TBF it was the fans that had encroached onto the pitch side rather than him leaping into the crowd. I actually like to see players celebrate with supporters though. It’s an emotional game and it’s good to see players who we are told don’t care about anything other than money showing that passion. When I’m in charge of FIFA after opening my offshore account not appropriately celebrating a goal will become a yellow card offense.

I think they should keep the game just as it is – that way we get to keep amazing, free-flowing and exciting matches just like we had on Friday night…

That’s the thing with these sorts of games being part of a World cup qualification. Malta and similar teams best hope is a draw in these games so they will just play 10-0-0 formation and teams like England just don’t have the skill to break these teams down and if they did it’d just end up 8-0 which doesn’t really make for much better viewing.
Teams below a certain rank should probably have their own pre-qualification so that only the better ones make it to qualification proper.

Teams below a certain rank should probably have their own pre-qualification so that only the better ones make it to qualification proper.

+1 to that bit. But in an already congested fixture calendar, when would England find the time to play all the extra games 😉

Malta and similar teams best hope is a draw in these games so they will just play 10-0-0 formation

……and still beat Scotland 3 – nil

CaptainFlashheart – Member
What and turn it into a pantomime?
Some might say that it already is.

And cheating exists solely in football?

Stop with the football snobbishness, it says more about you than football.

……and still beat Scotland 3 – nil

When?

Tonight at Hampden most likely.

Not a chance.

Been done!

How about only being allowed to pass to the opposition?

The West Ham technique for this season?

I’d like to see the rugby yellow card in the round ball game as well. Yellow = ten minutes off. Especially for diving, feigning injury and ANY dissent to the ref.

You mean like hockey has had for donkeys?

Green = warning (sometimes includes 2 mins sin bin, i.e. @ international level)
Green = 5-10 mins sin bin
Red = sent off permanently

When I played, green was only every a warning, yellows were regular but rare. I never saw a red in my whole career (though we often came close in the team I played for).

5v4

Also solved by hockey – minimum number of players on a team is 7 (max is 11). If you fall below 7 for whatever reason, including sin bins/sendings off then the game is called off – bit of an incentive to avoid that. There was a time when half our team encircled one umpire to protest at a categorically wrongly awarded penalty stroke – his response was: I’ll sin bin the 5 of you (thus reducing us to 6 and forcing abandonment of the game) or the captain gets yellow for the rest of the match (about 30 minutes left).