I can fix most popular sport in world – The Journal

Unlike the World Series, the World Championship is a truly global event. Soccer is the most popular sport in the world by any measure. Why didn’t soccer catch on in America like it did everywhere else? I lived in New York in the 70’s and early 80’s when the sport’s greats came to America to play for the New York Cosmos and spread the sport here. Pele, Beckenbauer and Chinaglia all played once for Cosmos, filling the 80,000-seat Giants Stadium. It was an exciting time for football in the United States

So what has happened in the almost 50 years since then? Why hasn’t football reached the popularity and heights it was predicted here?

As beautiful as the beautiful game is, it has flaws. Offside in football is the worst rule in all of the sport. Many other sports popular in America strategically seek to get behind defense to increase their chances of scoring (basketball, hockey, soccer). Not allowed in football. The solution – abolish the offside rule.

As beautiful as the passing game is, the beautiful game can quickly turn into a nerve-wracking, boring game of “keeping away” if players continue to pass the ball backwards to the defenders and goalie. The solution: Once the ball goes over midfield, it can no longer be played back over the midfield line. Borrowed from basketball, this rule encourages more attacking, counterattacking, and ball pressure with more players in a smaller area of ​​the court.

Eliminate gunfights. Matches that end in a tie to be decided by shootout is like a free throw contest to decide a basketball game. The game should be decided by the game itself. The solution: remove one player from each team every minute during overtime. This creates scoring opportunities. With a full field of three players, if you go down to three points, someone scores, and the decision is decided by some kind of soccer ball and fitness test, not a shooting contest.

Let the clock tick down, not up. How can we create excitement at the end of a game if we don’t know when the game will end? Only the referee knows exactly how much stoppage time will be added. (Talk about an opportunity for corruption. We need transparency about the remaining time of a game.) The solution – turn the clock down so the game ends at 0:00. And here’s a thought: stop the clock during “overtime.”

Please stop flapping around. If I want to watch a soap opera, I change the channel. And no vuvuzelas. I can’t hear the fans singing.

Once again I bravely went where maybe I shouldn’t have. With a previous column, I’ve upset some in the local hockey community. I’m just trying to help. The media clearly agree with me. Why else do we have the transfers 90 to 30? These are attempts to condense a 90 minute game into 30 minutes for TV because the entire 90 minutes lacks any action.

Youth football is a wonderful introduction to the sport, even if a child’s game looks more like a swarm of bees around the ball. Let’s build on the popularity of Ted Lasso and the latest fad of owning a celebrity team. We have strong women’s teams. Let’s catch up with the boys. Oh, and if you have a sport you want me to fix for you, just let me know.

Jim Cross is a retired professor and basketball coach at Fort Lewis College.