***Official FIFA World Cup 2018 Thread***

Perhaps I’m showing my ignorance, but I find Pro/Rel to be one of the most overrated concepts in sports. Take EPL, for example. Usually it’s the same 6 teams at the top (Manchester City, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool, Chelsea, and Arsenal), Everton, Newcastle United, Crystal Palace, Leicester City, and West Ham United are usually good enough to rarely sweat relegation but (excluding Leicester City’s magical year) never really compete for the top of the standings, and the rest of the teams are really just playing to not be relegated. How does pro/rel really help? IMO it doesn’t - the top and middle of the league just get a fresh batch of bad teams to beat up on every year.

Agreed, IMO. I think a great way to fix soccer is to limit the amount of players that can transfer into a team and instead make top clubs rely on academy (kids that they actually train) much more often.
 
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It gives more of incentive to improve the team. A MLS team doesn't need to improve because it doesn't have to worry about being dropped from the league. All the owners want is $, they don't care if they are winning.

Yet for all of this incentive to improve a team, you still see the same teams at the top of the table, the same teams in the middle of the table, and the same teams fighting to not be relegated. Here’s the problem: forget the best players; decent players aren’t going to want to sign with teams at the bottom lest they risk having to play in a lower division in the future, and how much money is a team at the bottom of the table actually going to want to spend considering if they get relegated they risk destroying their team’s finances with contracts they can’t afford to pay in a lower division. This is why I can’t help but think pro/rel is a fallacy because in reality just don’t see how it does what everybody claims it does.
 
Wish I was in Sweden partying right now.
hot-soccer-fans-sweden.jpg
 
Yet for all of this incentive to improve a team, you still see the same teams at the top of the table, the same teams in the middle of the table, and the same teams fighting to not be relegated. Here’s the problem: forget the best players; decent players aren’t going to want to sign with teams at the bottom lest they risk having to play in a lower division in the future, and how much money is a team at the bottom of the table actually going to want to spend considering if they get relegated they risk destroying their team’s finances with contracts they can’t afford to pay in a lower division. This is why I can’t help but think pro/rel is a fallacy because in reality just don’t see how it does what everybody claims it does.
Those teams on the top have a lot more money. They can sign top players but that doesn't club with less money can't have a good team. It's kind of like how mlb. The Red Sox have a much higher payroll than the A's but they still have had good teams. I think the pro/rel system works perfect for soccer, which is why basically ever league uses it.
 
Agreed, IMO. I think a great way to fix soccer is to limit the amount of players that can transfer into a team and instead make top clubs rely on academy (kids that they actually train) much more often.

Soccer needs to limit the amount of players in the field, there needs to be more space to score line 9v9. Or have something like blue lines like in hockey. That’s what I’d do if I was in charge of soccer for everyone on the planet. And make crying an automatic red card.
 
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Soccer needs to limit the amount of players in the field, there needs to be more space to score line 9v9. Or have something like blue lines like in hockey. That’s what I’d do if I was in charge of soccer for everyone on the planet. And make crying an automatic red card.
At 11v11 the players run an average of 7 miles per game. Adding more space may add some openings, but thats adding a lot more distance for these guys to have to run. I don't think it is as simple of a fix as hockey's 3 on 3 rule is. The "blue line" in soccer is mid field, if there is one, but I find the offsides very interesting. Watching Japan play the offsides bait play in crunch time was cool to see, imo, and it adds a wrinkle that no other sport has.
 
Last year I saw a ref call offsides when a team was on their own of the field.. idiot.
 
To an extent. Had McDermott actually won at Iowa State, sure, more fans would have been on board with him. However, fans would have been complaining about how boring the games are. For example, Wisconsin over the last couple of decades has won a lot in both football and basketball. All you ever hear about from ISU fans is how they can’t stand to watch their games because of how boring they are, how Wisconsin sets football/basketball back several decades, etc.
Not that long before McDermott was Tim Floyd who stressed defense and there were a lot of fans who embraced his style of play because he was able to win games with it.
 
At 11v11 the players run an average of 7 miles per game. Adding more space may add some openings, but thats adding a lot more distance for these guys to have to run. I don't think it is as simple of a fix as hockey's 3 on 3 rule is. The "blue line" in soccer is mid field, if there is one, but I find the offsides very interesting. Watching Japan play the offsides bait play in crunch time was cool to see, imo, and it adds a wrinkle that no other sport has.
I coached a girls' team for a few years and we ran an offsides trap that was extremely effective. It can be dangerous, however since the quality of AR's in youth soccer is pretty hit and miss. We often had to abandon it for the remainder of a half if the AR was failing to call clearly offsides players.
 
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Colombia are a dirty team. Penalty awarded to England and during the hullabaloo one of the Colombian players is using his cleats to scruff up the penalty spot.
 
I'm not a soccer hater and I enjoy the World Cup, but why the heck do they pronounce teams like "Colombia are" or "England have"? It sounds so unnatural and it pisses me off