Score draws
What teh fuck? I know Brian Mawhinney is horse's head stuffed with straw at best, but "Managers may hate shoot-outs but fans love them" is bananas.Brian, dude, this is the truth: Managers hate shootouts but fans hate them even more.
This bullshit all began with the World Cup in the US. Ever since, we've had a parade of suggestions of how we can Americanise football: play four quarters (why?), make bigger goals so there are more goals (we'd watch ice hockey if we wanted more goals), have overtime if games are drawn (we don't mind draws).
See that last one? It's the troof. We don't mind draws. An honourable draw, everyone gets a point, we like that. If you are facing relegation (and a glance at the Championship table will show you why I mention this), a point is priceless. Why fuck that up?
Of course they won't go for it. Football is not broken and doesn't need fixing. There is no clamour for more points to be doled out. There was when we brought in three for a win. There was a realisation that football had slipped into safety-first dullardry. But draws are just right now. If you don't go for the win, you only get a third of the reward. And because you've drawn, you share the spoils (sort of; it used to be a share, but with three for a win, of course it's not quite, maybe the other one goes to Jeebus). Mawhinney's proposal would be shit. It's horrible to be knocked out of the World Cup on pens: an unsatisfactory solution that no one except Germany likes; how much worse to be relegated because someone missed a pen a few weeks back, or to have the title decided by some midtable goalkeeper's palming your closest rivals' fifth pen into the net after they played out a safe draw?
posted by Dr Zen @ 11:49 am
3 Comments:
Well said. Football as it is played is not broke.
Let me ask you this. How do you feel about video verification for goals?
Actually decided to read the article. That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever read. Okay, not THE stupidest, well, anyway...
One of the things wonderful about football is that it is NOT a typical American game. Of course, I love American Football, don't get me wrong, but why the hell does anyone think that anything is wrong with the game. Why is a draw not a result? Some of the most exciting games I've seen have been when an underdog squad buries one in the corner of the net two minutes into extra time to rescue a precious point. That's a valid outcome of competition.
The draw demonstrates that on that day, both teams played to equal strength and reward, one war or another. Tacking a shootout on the end forces an artificial result unwarranted by the play on the field.
Just stoopid.
I hate productization. I hate shootouts too. I especially hate the installation of omnipotent marketing teams who then determine that something needs to be "improved" if it hasn't a market share continually growing at a desirable rate.
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