Football - Change The Rules

Football - Change The Rules

How to kill a game? In the second half of extra time between Real Madrid and Manchester City the ball was in play for less than 6 minutes. Bearing in mind that Man City needed to get the ball moving at every opportunity this means that Madrid managed to ensure the game was inactive for over 9 minutes.

Imagine if City had the same mindset. The ball would have been in play for a total of minus 3 minutes!

That’s not a pop at Real Madrid. Most teams having developed a winning position would attempt to slow the game down. It’s about the rules that allow the circumstances to occur.

Curiously, the abolition of the away goals rule led to this situation. Previously, Real Madrid would have qualified at the end of normal time. In general, you can now expect more of these 2-legged ties to go to extra time. Fantastic for the fans who get to see teams slug it out with the prospect of penalties as well at the end, but maybe not so good for the players. For once, it is a change that benefits the supporters.

However, look at the reason given for this adjustment. The argument goes that the away goals rule encouraged negative football. They could be right. A 1-0 win always had the appearance of a great result to take into the second leg for the home team, but let’s take it a step further.

Going ahead in a football match also appears to encourage negative football. How is any team able to ensure the ball is out of play for over 60% of the time? The rules enable it.

With the introduction of VAR, it now further highlights the need to adjust the way timekeeping is managed. The rules are superbly vague. Allowance is made by the referee. I’m starting to feel sorry for refs. They already carry an overnight bag with them and are being overburdened. Take some pressure away from them and apply a central form of timekeeping where the clock can be stopped. There will be arguments over this, but you just had to watch the Real Madrid players no longer able to stand up to realise that something needs to happen to encourage the game to flow.

I mention law 12 on a regular basis. The goalkeeper has 6 seconds to release the ball. The goalkeeper is never penalised for taking longer than 6 seconds. This got up to twenty the other night. If there’s a rule about time for the keeper, perhaps there should be limits for dead ball situations too.