The advantage rule should be modified to more closely resemble the one used in hockey. This change is so glaringly obvious I can’t believe it hasn’t been officially adopted yet. Currently, the advantage rule actually provides a positive incentive to foul in many instances, whereas, a priori, the laws of the game should be designed such that punishments for infringements are sufficient to overcome that incentive. These instances occur most commonly when an opponent makes a pass a sufficient distance—say 40 yards or more—from a defending player’s goal. If the defending player is close enough to the player making the pass and thinks the pass will be successful, he has a clear incentive to commit a foul. As long as his foul is not blatant enough to warrant a yellow card, the maximum punishment is a free kick far from his own goal. But, assuming the advantage is played, the benefit to fouling is to disrupt the player who just made the pass and eliminate him from attacking play, and, more generally, to get a chance to kick an opponent, annoy him, or possibly incite a retaliation, all without fear of further punishment. What should happen in this instance is to “play the advantage” for the duration of possession, and then award the original free kick once the advantage is lost, no matter how long its duration. The advantage rule as it currently stands is a detriment to attacking and encourages excessive and disruptive fouling. Why hasn’t it been changed?
I imagine the reason it hasn't been changed is because this rarely happens, in fact I can't remember ever seeing it in many wasted hours of watching/playing soccer.
ReplyDeleteAs a player and viewer of soccer who actually cares about the game, I can assure you that's completely untrue....this problem is incredibly common at any level
ReplyDeleteI can see your point regarding the apparent incentives however they should be minimized by the cautions starting to flow after the 3rd or 4th occurrence of this type of cynical foul in a game.
ReplyDeleteThey SHOULD be minimized, but too often you see a player eliminated from attacking play by being hacked down after making a pass. When there is no advantage played in these instances, the offending player is usually cautioned, but often, play continues, the attacking team loses the ball, and the offending player isn't punished at all.
ReplyDeleteThere is, of course, another reason to change the advantage rule, and that is that is the fact that only the attacking team can decide whether they WANT the free kick or not: so often you'll see an advantage played where the attacking team would have chosen the free kick instead, or vice versa...the only reasonable solution is to play the advantage and then give the free kick when the advantage is gone, in order to punish the defending team for fouling