Right now as I write this, Portugal is leading Switzerland 4-1. There is no way that Switzerland can come back and win this. Thus, the game has lost all its excitement. In fact, at 2-0, that was in effect the case. Soccer games are ruined by (1) one team running up the score to where it is unlikely the other team can come back and (2) teams holding on to 0-0 for the sake of taking their chances on a tie breaker.
This idea remedies those problems.
Furthermore, soccer is often about gaining and maintaining or overcoming an advantage. In the third game of group play in the World Cup, the advantage can be based on goal differential, e.g., one more goal and the team qualifies or is eliminated. This idea capitalizes on the excitement that comes from defending or attacking to maintain or reverse an advantage.
Divide the 90 minutes into five "sets" of 18 minutes each. Best 3 out of 5 sets wins the match.
Of course, most sets would end up 0-0. So, to avoid that ruining every set with some bizarre tie breaker, for each of the first four sets, give "advantage" to altering teams based on an initial coin toss. If the match is still tied at the end of the set, the "advantage" team wins the set. Otherwise, the team with the higher score wins the set. If the score is 2-2 in sets, the fifth set starts with a penalty-kick shoot out to decide advantage for the fifth set.
If a team manages to score three goals in quick succession, it only finishes that set, the other sets are still going to be exciting. And, the game does not feel finished, until the final whistle of the fifth set (unless one team scores a bunch of goals at the beginning of the fifth set).
To reflect the relative unfairness of the penalty kicks for the fifth set advantage, the fifth set could be made longer (perhaps conditionally on being tied after 18 minutes).-- Goesta Berling, Dec 06 2022 This is what American football needs to rise to the level of entertaining. https://www.youtube...watch?v=50GxzL0yZWE [doctorremulac3, Jan 01 2023] 17776 https://www.sbnatio...-football/chapter-1What (American) football will look like in the future... [prufrax, Jan 01 2023] [+] Many, including me, find soccer unwatchable. Ideas like this should be tried. American football is changed as necessary to make it more entertaining when necessary, sports should be modified when appropriate to make them better. If it’s about preserving traditional cultural institutions, do so by improving them.
Now one drawback of this from a financial perspective is that a game could end in 3/5ths the time of a regular game if I understand the concept. If a team wins the first 3 sets the game’s over.
Which actually might be merciful.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 06 2022 Football may be a boring game, but I don't think this helps.
As observed, one problem is that the team in the lead plays defensively, which makes the game less exciting. However, what this change would do would be to make the team with 'advantage' play defensively from the start, so as to win the set by default.
//American football is changed as necessary to make it more entertaining when necessary//
I hope you'll let us know when they succeed.-- Loris, Jan 01 2023 I hear ya. I think we need to add this soccer feature to up football's entertainment value. (linky)-- doctorremulac3, Jan 01 2023 Why not just change the game length to 20 minutes?-- Voice, Jan 02 2023 I'd be happy with 5.-- doctorremulac3, Jan 02 2023 If the problem is that the teams each know what the score is and therefore can strategise to win, the answer has to be somehow making the teams not know what the current score is so that they have to always play to win.
Not sure yet how to incentivise the teams to score without letting them know if at any point they have actually scored or not. Maybe a big sign visible to the audience but not visible to the players which randomly alternates between "game on" and "practice time". Any goals scored during "practice time" would not count towards the final score. So if Portugal had scored 4 and Switzerland 1, the audience would know that in fact three of Portugal's goals had been scored during "practice time" and so the real score was 1-1. but neither team would know this vital fact, but they would know that it was a possibility.-- pocmloc, Jan 02 2023 It would be trivial to cheat and tell the team a thousand different ways.-- Voice, Jan 04 2023 //If the problem is that the teams each know what the score is and therefore can strategise to win, the answer has to be somehow making the teams not know what the current score is so that they have to always play to win.//
//It would be trivial to cheat and tell the team a thousand different ways.//
What you could do would be to not determine the score until after the match. Suppose you had a tombola with, say, an equal number of : red balls (worth nothing), green balls (worth 2 point each) and yellow balls (worth 1 point each). Perhaps 10 of each colour. Then after the match, you have an official draw, where you pull as many balls for each side as goals they scored.
Every goal scores 1 point on average, but you always can increase your chance of winning by scoring another goal.-- Loris, Jan 04 2023 Perhaps with two balls on the field at all times teams could play offense and defense simultaneously. Scoring and excitement would go up.
Alternately the ball might be made to explode violently if no goal is quickly made.-- whatrock, Jan 06 2023 Or the boots could have long razor sharp spikes on them. Play would be made much more careful and strategic-- pocmloc, Jan 06 2023 Which would cause blood, grievous injury, pain, permanent bodily disfigurement and even death.
Then nobody would want to play anymore.
Oh! [+]-- whatrock, Jan 06 2023 random, halfbakery