My thoughts about the offsides rule & scoring were in the context of our conversation about making soccer more appealing to American TV viewers.
A lot of those American viewers "get" the finer points of American football tactics -- such as a trap blocks & blitzes -- which don't
result in touchdowns. However, they would be bored if most American football games were decided by 7-0 and 10-3 scores. They want to see touchdowns, too, and
like games with scores of 35-31 and 28-24.
Similarly, in baseball, the viewers (i.e. the purists -- I guess I'm one of them) "get" the finer points of bunting and defensive strategy. But
the majority of fans would get bored by a lot of baseball games ending in 2-1 and 1-0 scores. They want to see home runs, too, and like seeing games ending in
scores of 6-5 and 4-3.
Likewise, American TV viewers get bored by a lot of soccer games ending in 2-1 and 1-0 scores.
Look at the statistics for the previous World Cup. At 2.3
goals per match, that's a lot of 2-1 and 1-0 matches. The championship game was 1-1 and decided by a penalty shootout. I thought the France-Italy game was
incredibly exciting. But I heard guys on NY sports radio the next day saying, "Why didn't they just start the day game with the penalty shootout
rather than wasting 90 minutes?
So all I'm saying is: can't we relax/modify the offsides rules to encourage a little more scoring? A few more 5-4 and 3-2 games wouldn't be the
worst thing imho.
I don't think that soccer really
needs to change to suit "American" tastes - particularly when those tastes appear to be formed mainly by people who are incredibly skilled at
convincing viewers (and preserving viewing figures into the bargain) of what those viewers [apparently] believe - TV, marketing and advertising
"gurus". I strongly suspect that unless those network executives figure out a foolproof way how to make mega bucks out of it, soccer will be lost to
the general American population. This is a shame, but in the grand scheme of things, America is very much a minority market in terms of soccer,
internationally. Of course, we in the soccer fraternity would dearly like to see the US more positively represented - maybe it is time to lobby your TV
channels, execs and even politicians for more soccer exposure.
