A Beautiful Thread for the Beautiful Game

I've been reading some discussions and watching clips of the City v Spurs game, and it's another case for video refereeing. Sterling is played through, Walker catches up enough to shove him in the back just as he's taking a shot, and he misses while staying up. Blatant penalty and red card, and given 19 times out of 20 if the attacker goes down. Instead, Spurs soon scored an equaliser, with City players and staff fuming at the utter incompetence of Premier League referees.

I don't hate Spurs as much as I'm meant to as an Arsenal fan, but I must say the Spurs fans cheering the referee and bragging about having the refs favour them consistently are a disgrace. Even in a discussion about another error, this time in the Championship and by Mike Dean, the Spurs fans were saying they expect that sort of thing in their favour. (In this case it was a penalty for a hand ball outside the box, which is fairly average for Dean.)

The referee in Arsenal's game against Burnley needs to be better. In the reverse fixture Arsenal were given a very controversial goal, but usually when one team parks the bus they're the ones getting favours. Good refereeing is best for everyone.

edited 21st Jan '17 4:55:41 PM by BestOf

Double-post because the thread's not moving at the moment.

Arsenal 0 - 0 Burnley at half-time. An injury scare for Cech late on, looked at first very much like the incident where he got his famous head injury. The replays showed that the attacker had stepped on Cech's arm, rather than kicking his head, so that's actually good. The attacker also immediately signaled for the physios to come in, but there wasn't much of a problem in the end.

Arsenal have been in total control of this game, building up attack after attack after attack. Their long shots have been largely off target, but other than that Arsenal have looked very likely to score. Right now the main problem is Alexis: when he has the ball he's very selfish, especially taking long shots when he could play someone through. He knows he's tied for top scorer, so that's probably why he's so selfish today. It's not normal for him. Giroud is playing well, and Iwobi is OK. Ramsey is improving, as well.

I hope Arsenal send out another striker for Iwobi early in the second half if it's still goalless. Welbeck and Lucas are available, so it'll be between those two. I'd pick Lucas because he's played more this season; quality-wise, I don't know if there's much of a difference between those two.

edited 22nd Jan '17 7:07:34 AM by BestOf

Yesterday, Egypt won 1-0 against Uganda. The latter are eliminated, the former only need to draw against already qualified Ghana to go through.

Today, hosts Gabon will have to fight with Cameroon to see if they get qualified, while Burkina Faso and Guinea-Bissau duke it out for a possible spot (depending on the result of the former game - a draw in the former will benefit the possible winner of the latter).

And, in 5 hours, the Minho rivalry between us and Braga will begin, at their place. With Tiquinho Soares going not to China (like I had said a few days earlier) but to Porto, and with João Pedro being sold by 1.5 €M to LA Galaxy (he's only 23, but I don't know if his career will improve - pity, as on a good day he can be a sharper Fellaini - right down to the haircut◊), it's gonna a be a very difficult match, especially since Braga will have to chance to definitely go above Sporting CP (Sporting drew 2-2 yesterday with Maritimo).

Arsenal 2 - 1 Burnley.

What a thriller.

In the second half, there was a clear penalty call that the referee missed, with a foul against Mustafi in the box. Mustafi got his revenge later, though, by scoring a headed goal from a corner. It was his first ever Arsenal goal.

Xhaka tackled with both feet in the 65th minute, duly getting a straight red for it. He really needs to stop doing that. From that point on, it was very difficult for Arsenal. They still created more chances than Burnley, even with 10 outfield players, but Burnley's crosses into the box and the situations that ensued were suddenly much more dangerous.

In added time - of which there were 7 minutes, because of a Burnley injury - Barton was brought down by Coquelin, and a penalty was given. Gray scored.

As the game was nearing its end, Koscielny was kicked in the face inside the Burnley penalty area. Replays showed that he might have been offside in the lead-up to it, so it shouldn't have been given. (Then again, the foul was bad enough that Burnley were lucky the ref decided to only give a yellow.) Alexis scored from the spot, making him the leading scorer in the league.

Burnley will feel that they've been robbed a draw twice by controversial late Arsenal goals. Then again, they could just as well have been 1-0 down much sooner than they were, if the ref had spotted the foul on Mustafi.

EDIT: The referee, on balance, was better than average for the Premier League. He only missed one blatant penalty call. There were two incidents where Mustafi got elbowed in the face hard - both of them in a way that could be a red card on another day, yet not even a yellow given today for either incident - but still, better than usual for the Premier League.

edited 22nd Jan '17 8:49:43 AM by BestOf

To be honest, decisions like the Arsenal penalty just offer more reason why I would want the fourth official to have a TV to watch - because it would be easier with such a setup to see whether A) it was a foul or not, and B) whether it was offside or not.

If it was offside, then you don't need to look at the foul, but if not then you can also look at the foul.

It would take little time to decide, and similar to Rugby it would help in the end.

Braga 1-2 Vitória de Guimarães

15 years later (if my memory is not mistaken), we finally won again at their stadium! Considering how intense the rivalry is, I'm kinda impressed that there weren't many scuffles and pushes. Now, on to the match.

Our centre-back (and captain) Josué scored a tap-in 10 minutes in the match. About 6 minutes later, Tiquinho Soares scored a lovely header (as I've said above, it is almost confirmed that he will go to Porto - pity, as I think he would've done better to end the season here with us, considering how awesome he's been; he has 7 goals for us in the Liga, counting this one). The same Tiquinho could've scored his second tonight, if it didn't hit the bar.

In the second half, Braga put a lot of pressure to recover. They hit the post, and managed to shut down most of our counter-attacks. Near the 90' mark, one of their players got a second yellow and, at the very last minute, they scored a consolation goal.

Beautiful performance by the team. Here's the current table (the top 6):

1 - Benfica - 45 points

2 - Porto - 41 p.

3 - Braga - 36 p.

4 - Sporting CP - 35 p.

5 - Vitória SC - 34 p.

6 - Marítimo - 27 p.

edited 22nd Jan '17 2:29:09 PM by Quag15

Hell of a good result.

Regarding means of "improving" the Beautiful Game, I'm realizing I'm a few days late to sharing this, but it's probably worthwhile I speak up about Marco Van Basten's recent batch of suggestions (none of which advocate video refereeing).

As a FIFA technical director, here's a bunch of changes that he believes will preserve the sport's integrity and standing as the world's most-watched sport:

• Restricting club players to 60 match appearances a season to prevent "burnout".
• Orange cards to signify 10-minute stays in sin bins for "middling infringements" between yellow and red card offenses.
• No offside rule... at all.
• Scrap extra time during draw games in elimination tournaments and introduce "American-style" shootouts. You know, this sort of thing:

I have to disagree with Van Basten's proposals. Maybe with the exception of the removal of extra time before penalty phase (even then, I would keep it for finals. That's how CONMEBOL manages its tournaments, after all).

Also,

Real Madrid 2 - 1 Málaga

Not every day you see four Venezuelan players competing against Real Madrid in one match.

Those ice hockey-style penalties look kind of stupid. Maybe it's just that it's not what I'm used to, but I prefer the traditional penalty. Also, I want to keep extra time in a draw because I think it's better to win by playing than it is through penalties. (That said, I'm fine with penalties after extra time - I don't want any more replays, as the schedules are already bad enough as they are for top clubs.)

Orange card, I'm actually kind of fine with. There are definitely times when a yellow seems lenient, yet a red seems too hard. If you could have a yellow card that also included a given time out of the game as punishment - so essentially an ice hockey penalty, but with the yellow card also included - I think it might improve the game. Maybe worth a trial somewhere.

No offside? No, thanks. It would force defenders to sit extremely deep at all times, stretching the pitch and play, while keeping the midfield and defenders further away from each other (especially for the team with the ball). I think it would slow the game down.

60-game limit... I get the point, but aren't the club's staff and the players themselves supposed to be able to determine whether someone can play? If everyone says you're fine and you think you're fine, it would be cruel for the rules to still prevent you from playing. Who knows, it might also drive clubs to use their star players less, especially from the bench, out of fear that they'll not be available for the last games of the season. Top clubs might play the first couple of games each season with their reserves.

That's the rule, when it comes to giving a penalty. For dangerous play and a couple of other types of fouls, though, you can get a red card even if it's out of play. Spit on someone while they're offside, and there won't be a penalty but there will be a red card. In this case, the ref should have given the red but not the penalty. (He didn't give the red, so I suppose in this case it wouldn't even have been a yellow.)

I would be upset that Arsenal won by a wrongly given penalty, but that very obvious foul against Mustafi that should have been a penalty that the referee missed makes up for it, IMO. If that had been given, Arsenal would have been 1-0 up sooner and probably scored a couple more before 90 minutes - they usually take a long time to score their first, but once that's done the goals start coming.

If the 4th official had a TV, he would've seen the foul on Mustafi and given the penalty. I think that would be the best-case scenario.

Maybe there wouldn't even need to be a quota of challenges by each manager or anything like that. If the 4th (or a 5th) referee had a TV, they could watch quick replays of incidents immediately after they occur (there's usually a short break, anyway, for a free kick or corner or goal kick or similar). That assistant could then tell the main ref there was something he missed, and the decision would be given based on that.

In 90+% of the cases I believe this wouldn't even slow the game down at all from what it is now, and in the ones where it would slow things, it would also cut down on time wasted on players protesting and arguing decisions, so it would balance out.

To be honest, that might be better than giving the managers the option to challenge a decision. It would improve the standard of refereeing and make the game more fair, and it wouldn't enable the managers to game the system the way a set number of challenges might.

Follow-up video regarding my last post: Two German amateur teams play 90 minutes without observing the offside rule in an "experiment" to see how this changes (or doesn't change) the game.

I'm not sure if they ever clearly explain the significance of those added blue lines (if they mean anything at all), but I'm assuming it's supposed to be akin to ice hockey's blue line, meaning ball would have to cross the furthest line before any attacking players or something.

(Turn on English subtitles, if you have to.)

The rule is straight out of rugby union, where it's the "simple" yellow card. However, Rugby Union has 15 players on the pitch, and having one less is logically less impactful than to do the same with 11 players (or 10 if you exclude the GK which doesn't exist in rugby).

To compare, in handball, with 6 players + 1 GK, players are kicked out for 2 minutes, and a recent update to the rules allowed for the GK to switch out so the team can keep attacking with 6 players (but if they lose the ball, the goal might be empty...).

So it might be necessary to adjust the duration to football rules.

I forgot to write about yesterday's matches at the AFCON, so, quick recap for yesterday and today:

Yesterday, hosts Gabon were eliminated after a goalless draw with Cameroon. A team like this had to rely on Aubameyang for the most part, which didn't work out at the end. 3 draws. The one that will go through with Cameroon and the one, in fact, that topped the group, was Burkina Faso, who won 2-0 against Guinea-Bissau. Unlucky Guinea-Bissau with an own goal, but they've delivered a decent performance in their debut in the final stage.

Today... madness. Senegal (who were already qualified) frustrated Slimani's Algeria's plans by drawing 2-2 (goals here), while Tunisia smashed Zimbabwe in the first half (the game ended 2-4 - highlight: this goal by Zimbabwe's Knowledge Musona). So, Algeria goes home, and so, we know two of the quarter-finals matches already: an interesting Burkina Faso vs Tunisia and a spicy and promising Senegal vs Cameroon.

In other news, the transfer of Soares to Porto is confirmed. There goes our striker, and it's a pity, as I think he could have fulfilled the season and scored more goals for us. A possible replacement is Rafael Martins, who is at Levante, and scored 16 goals in the previous season while on loan at Moreirense.

edited 23rd Jan '17 1:36:11 PM by Quag15

To add to this on Rugby Union - few positions really have that much of an overall impact, there are a couple of exceptions depending on the team, but it's not as if you just had your goalkeeper thrown off the pitch and he can't come back.

You basically leave the pitch for ten minutes and then come back on, so the rest of the team have to tip-toe to make sure they don't get into any situations where that one player would have been most useful.

I can't say for certain how much impact it would have in football/soccer, but there are very particular situations where this can have an impact in Rugby Union under the laws, but that's for another time.

I will say though in a not entirely informed opinion that it probably would have a decent impact, especially if allowed for times where it's ill discipline that isn't exactly red worthy, and where tempers fly so a player has to be put elsewhere for a period during the game.

I'm mostly familiar with sending players out for a short time from ice hockey. (I'm Finnish, so obviously I watch at least the national team's games - not watching would be about as weird as an American never having watched the Super Bowl.)

In ice hockey, I think it works very well. The team and player both get punished, but it's not excessive. (In ice hockey, getting sent off from the game totally or suspended for the next game is rarer than a red card in football, but obviously it can and does happen.)

I think in football the disadvantage of being even one player down is very severe, even though in ice hockey you've only got 5 skaters (outfield player equivalent). Then again, in football a large part of the disadvantage from having fewer players comes from everyone else getting exhausted, so it tends to take time for the punishment to start really impacting the game. For a good 10-20 minutes, a team with a player sent off might look just fine. (This, of course, would still depend on how the game was going and how good the teams are in relation to each other, etc.)

I think having a player off for a while might be a good idea, but it would be hard to decide what a good time would be. For me, I'd suggest 15 minutes as the default or minimum - that's enough to give the other side a chance to take advantage of it, or at least shift the balance of the game by tiring out the opposition. Opinions?

Soccer with ice hockey penalties... and boards... and line changes...

Only in America.

Arena soccer is still going strong. For a few years in the late 00s they even partnered with a Canadian and Mexican league.

http://www.maslsoccer.com/home

It sure is. Still virtually unheard of in my corner of the country ever since the New York Arrows folded in the mid-80's (well before my time, but quite a "fascinating" history).

San Diego Sockers, Dallas Sidekicks, and a few other teams from the 80's heyday I know are still going strong, and marquee players from that era are still recognized, honored sports figures in those cities.

edited 24th Jan '17 8:40:55 AM by SeanMurrayI

Since 2010, the winner of the previous AFCON was knocked out in the group stage of the following tournement. The tradition has been maintained today, as Ivory Coast fell to Morocco by one goal (kudos to Hervé Renard's strategy, who has a chance to have the honour of achieving the AFCON for the third time with 3 different teams - the irony? The previous national team he had managed was Ivory Coast themselves, with whom he had achieved their trophy 2 years before). It's also the first time in history that Morocco managed to win against Ivory Coast. Oh, and Morocco's goal? This beauty by Alioui:

Morocco got the second place (and qualified from the group stages for the first time in 13 years), since DR Congo defeated Togo 3-1. There are new teams breaking the African status quo, and DR Congo are also showing some promising talent, to boot (Kabananga in particular, who scored one goal per match so far in the competition).

Ivory Coast, Gabon and Algeria knocked out in the group stages. No wonder some people say that AFCON is one of the most unpredictable tournaments.

edited 24th Jan '17 1:13:49 PM by Quag15

This defending here is as horrible as the goal is well-struck. People have scored from the kick-off spot when opponents are half-asleep and leaving all the space a scorer asks for.

The defender directly in front of the goalscorer neither "closes down" space or "makes himself bigger." It's the goalscorer who gets away with dribbling the ball closer to the defender while the defender's feet are so deeply planted on the ground that his left foot doesn't even leave the ground while he, basically, pretends to stick a foot out.

Credit to the goalscorer and his teammate with the assist, but damn, would I be embarrassed to have any other involvement in this run of play.

Looks like the defender wanted to avoid committing too early, and went way too far with that. With so much space either side of the defender, a step to approach the striker or block one lane might become an opportunity for the forward to go the other way and steal a step or two before the defender can recover enough even for a risky tackle from the side/behind. In that sort of situation it's still probably best to take a chance and get close to the forward. Standing off leaves you open to the sort of thing that happened there. Poor defending, to be sure. (Good shot, though.)

Do you think Russia would try anything underhanded to look good on the World Cup?

I would be very surprised if they're not doing doping. To save face, FIFA might take steps (in coordination with the Russian authorities) to hide this. It would be consistent with the way Russian sports authorities have been able to hide doping in the past, according to the revelations from the past few years. (It would also be consistent with FIFA's general corruption if they're in on it.)

Russian fans will want results over everything else, as they do in all of the sports where I have any sort of information about Russian fans, so if Russia plays like Portugal/Greece/Denmark in their EURO-winning years I won't be surprised. As long as they're in the competition, even if their play is boring, the home crowds will be on board. If they get eliminated too early, though, there might be riots.

The Russian FA might also try to reschedule Russian competitions so that the players get some more rest than those in foreign leagues generally would, but the effect of that would be pretty minor. (In any case, all national teams get their players in fairly early, in time to do some friendlies and a training camp before the tournament, so the Russians would just have a bit more of that, and only for Russian players who play in the Russian league.) I vaguely recall reading something about this specific suggestion earlier, but I can't be bothered to look it up right now. Might have been just speculation, anyway (as my post here is, as well).

As for refereeing, that's a bit tougher. The referees come from all around the world, so it should be hard to try to control them. Russian referees might try to influence games that have a potential impact on Russia's progress in the tournament, but that's not very likely. (Those games would probably go to referees from other countries.)

I'm going to mention ice hockey again, so sorry that I'm going on a bit of a tangent. In the Ice Hockey World Championship a couple of years ago, Russia got huge favours from the referees, especially in the final, which was widely regarded as an absolute travesty. (Why, yes, the final was against Finland, but still.) The tournament was held in Belarus, and the Belarusian referees seemed intent, at all times, to try to get results that would give Russia easier opponents (or just outright win games for Russia, especially with the final). That competition was in Belarus, but it was close enough to Russia that some Russian entities obviously got to influence the Belarusian authorities and/or referees. I'm guessing it would be bribes, but it could also be some sort of betting thing, or just overblown loyalty to their neighbour and ally.

Something like that would be much harder to orchestrate in a football tournament, with so many more countries sending in referees and so little control for the hosts over how the referees work. It's just about possible, though. (No likely, but possible.)

It occurs to me that Russia might also try to keep away crowds silent during Russia's games by intimidating them (for instance, by being very lenient with hooligans) or drive them to boycott the games (eg, though their anti-gay legislation). This would be a bit self-defeating, though, because it would impact Russia's reputation, both as hosts and in terms of ticket sales. They'll want to sell all the tickets and show lots of people around the world celebrating and having a good time in Russia, and hopefully that will weigh more heavily than any antipathy against the fans of a country playing against Russia. So, again, pure speculation, and not very likely.

The only scenarios I've suggested here that I actually consider likely are that Russia will play negative football, and that Russian players will dope like it's the 1960's, and the authorities will conspire to hide it. I'll be genuinely surprised if, 5-10 years from now, there won't have been any revelations about this.

edited 24th Jan '17 4:40:59 PM by BestOf

In the AFCON, Egypt defeated already qualified Ghana with this free kick goal by Mohamed Salah and ended up topping the group. Uganda drew 1-1 with Mali, who got a deserved consolation point.

So, the quarter-finals will be:

Burkina Faso - Tunisia

Senegal - Cameroon

DR Congo - Ghana

Egypt - Morocco.

All interesting matches, and at least two of them will be fairly exciting to watch.

In other news, Southampton defeated Liverpool 1-0 with a goal by Shane Long in the final minutes of the match and so, the Saints will be marching in Wembley.

Oh, and Celta de Vigo knocked out Real Madrid from the Copa del Rey (2-2, 4-3 on agg.). Goals here (including an own goal by Danilo and a free kick goal by Ronaldo. My Final Edits, thoughts?

edited 25th Jan '17 2:18:24 PM by Quag15

I really hope Danilo goes elsewhere after this season ends (I'm assuming it's utopic to give him the boot this month). He's a very poor player and ruined a very heroic effort for Madrid to make one of their famous comebacks.

Worse, Celta and Madrid will yet again play against each other this very weekend in La Liga.

I'm happy for Elneny that he gets to continue with his national team in their campaign to rise back to the top of Africa after the political situation there knocked the wind out of the national team for several years. Arsenal could really do with a central midfielder right about now, especially a defending one - but obviously, he's free to play for his national team in an important tournament, and he'll probably develop more as part of that squad at this time (what with playing a different style than at Arsenal, etc).

Incidentally, I recently read an interview of him where he said he really wants to stay at Arsenal long-term and develop into a first-team regular. Not only that, but he even said his ultimate dream is to become an Arsenal legend. He praised the club and fans for welcoming him and helping him develop as a player, and acknowledged that it's a challenge to try to claim a place in the first-team squad but he's up to it and patient, what with his long-term goals being set that high.

I love reading something like that from a player. When he plays, he looks very happy, as well - it sort of reminds me of Wilshere. It's too soon to believe that he really loves the club that much, and obviously he'd need to be a fixture in the first-team squad for at least about 5 years to become a local hero, and be very good and consistent to become more than a cult figure. Who knows if he's got the quality and mental strength to do it. Knowing Arsenal, even if he does, maybe he'll spend 3 seasons with at least a couple of months injured in each of them, as seems the standard for Arsenal players these days. Still, I can't help but hope that he does it. For that goal, playing well for Egypt and winning something (or at least going far) will do him a world of good.

Southampton's win over Liverpool (together with the first-leg win, obviously) means that their league home fixture against Arsenal will be moved. This could be a problem for Arsenal; they're playing Liverpool and Bayern around that time, so if Arsenal are unlucky they'll get all three games within a week or so, and probably lose all three and pick up some injuries on the way.

It would be better to have no more than 2 games a week. The Premier League demonstrates, time and again, how much fixture congestion can hurt a team. Look at Leicester this season compared to last season. Sure, they lost Kante, but having those Champions League games probably has made more of a difference for their points tally so far. That's the sort of difference you can expect if you're out of Europe and only/mostly focusing on just the league.

If Arsenal end up getting a little break in February, that might actually be very helpful. It would allow the key players to rest, while those who are recovering from injury would use that extra time to recuperate without missing games. We'll see what happens.