In football (soccer) there is a tremendous advantage associated with scoring just one or two goals. Right now I am watching England v. Senegal 1/8th final game in 2022 World Cup. It is 1/2 time. With a score of 2-0 in England's favor, bookies are not even taking bets on England advancing because it is such a sure thing. Senegal advancing pays out 21.5:1. Because there is virtually no chance that Senegal can equalize and eventually pull out ahead. The same happened yesterday in the game in the game between Argentina and Australia. Once Argentina had pulled ahead by one goal, the advantage was nearly insurmountable.
Because it is crucial to score an equalizer, the team that is down needs to attack harder, which makes them more vulnerable to a counter attack that in turn may cause an additional score by the opponent (2-0). At that point, it is usually game over.
To make the game more interesting, it is necessary to remove the advantage associated with scoring the first goal.
To remove the advantage of being ahead, a scoring team must remove a player and play with one player less. If the down-score team equalizes, the player comes back on. If the ahead-score team scores again, remove one more player.-- Goesta Berling, Dec 04 2022 You could use chess rules for taking players from the opposing team, castling the goalie, and promoting defenders if they manage to reach the far end of the pitch.-- pocmloc, Dec 04 2022 Again, bun for interesting concept. Anything to make soccer more watchable. Most fun game in the world to PLAY, but watching, not so much for me at least.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 04 2022 //the player comes back on.// Nah. Keep removing from the scoring side. Soccer never gets to particularly high scores, so there's very little risk of running out of players.-- neutrinos_shadow, Dec 04 2022 //promoting defenders if they manage to reach the far end of the pitch.//
How? Give them spring shoe extensions? Allow them to hit the ball with one hand?-- Voice, Dec 04 2022 I say we run a few games in the off-season, to check if [GB]'s 'Scorer Loses Player Equalizer Rules' work for a given value of "work"(ie: make football plus intéressant for les téléspectateurs). Report back. HBers are standing by...-- Sgt Teacup, Dec 04 2022 You know, what they should do is require any team losing at half time to sub on a German midfielder with a broken toe, so that the Miracle of Istanbul can be repeated.-- calum, Dec 05 2022 This would lead to a boring game in which teams would simply try to maintain possession but not score a single point until the final minute or so. Oh, wait, that's soccer's modus operandi...-- RayfordSteele, Dec 05 2022 [RS], maybe so. However, it is so hard to score in soccer that I doubt a team that needed a win would adopt that strategy. But you may be right as it often is the case that teams seem more content with taking their chances at the penalty shoot out than to risk being scored on. Hmm... the 0-0 result needs to be eliminated. See my Penalties First idea.-- Goesta Berling, Dec 05 2022 random, halfbakery