World Cup: Those rules suck, have some new ones

[womzilla]

I'm surprised by the enthusiasm with which the World Cup has been greeted by the traders in my office. (My desk is smack-dab in the middle of our New York trading floor--fixed-income and convertables to my west, high-touch and low-touch stock traders to my east, in a single room which stretches about 25 feet x 150 feet. There are five large TV screens throughout the floor, and all of them are tuned in when a game is on.) So I ended up caught in the excitement during the overtime finish of the Ghana-Uruguay game, and let me tell you, those rules are simply broken. Uruguay flagrantly cheated itself to victory.

The game was tied at the end of regulation, so the game was extended another 30 minutes of extra time. Neither team managed to score during the first 29 minutes, when the ball went out of bounds off a Uruguay player. Ghana inbounded the ball near the Uruguay goal, and a ferocious back-and-forth which lasted about eight seconds with the ball moving caroming among all of the players in the entire world. The Uruguay goal keeper got pulled forward by the action, and a Ghanese player kicked the ball at approximately three-quarters the speed of light straight into the goal, straight at a Uruguayan defender (Suarez) who was standing behind the goal line. Suarez did what any sane person would do if a deadly object was coming straight at his face: he punched the ball away.

(You can see all of this in slo-mo on this page at the Huffington Post.)

Of course, in world football, punching the ball violates the absolute most important rule of the game. Suarez cheated to stop Ghana from getting the goal and certainly winning the game. (Even in the most Hollywoodized film ever, there's no way Uruguay could have scored a catchup goal in the two or three seconds of time remaining in the game.)

Any good game designer knows that players will take the actions that the game rewards. The current penalty structure for deliberate handling is not sufficient, because the worst that can happen to the team that steals a goal by cheating is that they might lose the goal anyway on a penalty kick. Okay, they also lose the player; Suarez was immediately ejected from the game. But that didn't matter--the game was already over. And Ghana got its penalty kick, but penalty kicks go astray--and this one did. In effect, Suarez broke the most important rule of football and paid no cost; the worst that could have happened was that Ghana would have managed to score the goal that they had already scored, and the best that could happen was that Uruguay would get to win the game on the post-game shootout. (Which they did.)

So it's completely unsurprising that Suarez did what he did.

This strikes me as a situation where massive overkill is the only appropriate penalty. To use the phrasing from the FIFA Laws of the Game, I would propose that if a player "den[ies] the opposing team a goal or an obvious goalscoring opportunity
by deliberately handling the ball", the referee should have the ability to

1. eject the offending player


2. give the offended team a penalty kick


3. and award the goal as if the offense had not occurred.

Yes, this is nuking from orbit. But the current rules are a disgrace to game design.

As a side matter, I was trying to think of situtations in other professional sports where a scoring action could be awarded to a team in response to a offense by the other side. All I could think of for certain was that it's possible in baseball, though difficult, to score on a balk. supergee correctly remembered that in basketball, a call of goaltending awards the offended team a full basket plus possession of the ball, which seems about right. I know that hockey has an incredibly elaborate set of potential penalties available to the referees, including ejecting a player for 20 games (!), but I don't know if a goal can be awarded as a penalty. (Goals in hockey are almost as rare as in world football.) Anything else?

ETA: I was wrong; defensive goaltending in basketball does *not* result in the offense getting points plus possession, just points. Which means that a player has a reason to goaltend if a) he is certain that the basket will score, b) he has any hope that goaltending might not get called, and c) the penalty of an individual or team foul is unimportant (e.g., it's likely to be the last play of the game). This is pretty much exactly the same problem as in the Ghana match yesterday.

Comments

[washa-way.livejournal.com]

If the ball crosses the goal line completely, it's a goal (or it is SUPPOSED to be called a goal) even if a player standing in the net touches it. I still haven't been able to see from the replay if the goal should have counted on that basis or not, but regardless, I agree: Uruguay should not have been rewarded for cheating, nor Ghana punished for Uruguay's misdeeds.

That said, I don't believe Supergee is correct about hoops rules, at least not at the college level: a goaltending call does not result in the return of the ball to the offended team. If UNC shoots and Georgetown goaltends (which they did for the first four shots of the 1982 title game), the basket counts and Georgetown puts the ball into play from under the hoop, as after any basket; UNC does not get a second possession.

The NBA's rules may be different, but since they now allow a player to take multiple steps when driving to the basket, I think there's legitimate reason to consider what they're playing something other than basketball.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

I misread the NBA's rules--you're right, the basket is awarded and the other team takes possession as if the basket had scored normally. That was my interpretation, not supergee's.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

I think it's pretty clear from the replay that Suarez blocked the ball right at the line. I don't know the FIFA rules well enough to know how much of the ball has to cross the line to count as a goal, but I have no particular reason to believe the referees were wrong on this.

That a point I meant to make in the main post: there's been a lot of bad, or at least questionable, refereeing in this World Cup. In this case, though, it is the rules themselves which are broken, not any individual call.

[washa-way.livejournal.com]

I think you're right about Suarez--the ball had not crossed completely over the goal line. If it had done so, it would be a goal regardless of Suarez's hands. (The same rule applies for an out-of-bounds ruling, BTW--the ball must be 100% over the line to count as out.)

So yes, the rule was correctly applied in this case, but it's a bad rule. Without Suarez, it's 100% certain that Ghana scores; with Suarez and a PK, it's about 70% likely that Ghana scores. Ghana should not be put at such a disadvantage by a deliberate breaking of the rules.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

Note that the fact that Suarez was given an immediate red card indicates that the referees agree that it was a *deliberate* offense. (Handling the ball unintentionally is not an ejection offense.)

[fjm.livejournal.com]

See "hand of god" and Maradonna. This is why every game between England and Argentina is a grudge match.

Football fans remember dishonourable play. Uruguay will find they have no out of country supporters for years to come.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I've been finding watching the World Cup enlightening, maddening, and absolutely devastating...the end of the last Japan game was heartwrenching, and I've never, ever cried over a team losing before, but I cried for the Japanese team.

Soccer/football rules seem really strange to this U.S.-team acculturated gal. I get hockey and field hockey and lacrosse, unlike most of my peers (thanks to a boarding school education), but FIFA rules are something else.

[querldox.livejournal.com]

5 times, as I recall, all by Patrick Ewing, and, according to him, under strict instruction to do so ("stop all shots no matter what" or some such) by Coach Thompson. For a while, it looked like Ewing might end up as the top UNC-CH scorer, which would've lead to some question as to whether UNC-CH's MVP should have been him or Sleepy Floyd, probably the first time the choice would've been between two players on the other team. : -)

[querldox.livejournal.com]

Sorta have to disagree. This was magnified by it being the end of the game, but is it really any different than a basketball player fouling another player to prevent what's otherwise a sure basket? Well, that and that there are usually a 100 or so scores in a basketball game as compared to the usual under 5 in a soccer game.

This actually reminded me of a situation where I was playing a College Bowl match and my team was down by 10 points and the clock showed there was only time to get one more 10 point toss-up in. Someone on the other team buzzed in after just two words, such that there was no way they'd get the right answer other than by sheer luck, waited the maximum 3 seconds or so before giving their wrong answer (to their credit, they gave a one or two word answer and didn't unreasonably draw it out by giving a longer answer), which cost them 5 points. However, the amount of time used guaranteed we wouldn't hear enough of the question to be able to answer it, so they won by 5. While I personally didn't like it, it was within the rules and a valid strategy in that situation.

Also, btw, Suarez is ejected from the next game as well. Which is tough for Ghana, but is a major blow to Uruguay in the semi-s.

[washa-way.livejournal.com]

I don't think the foul analogy is exactly comparable to the Suarez incident; if you deliberately kick or hit a soccer player in the act of shooting, you'll be penalized and he'll be awarded a free kick, or a penalty kick if the foul occurred in the penalty box, just as a basketball player will be awarded two free throws if he's kicked or hit in the act of shooting. (If the basketball happens to go in anyway, the referee can count the shot and simply award a single bonus free throw.)

But Suarez never touched another player--only the ball, which was going into the goal. Thus Zilla's analogy of the goaltending call is, I think, much more applicable; if that were a basketball play, Ghana's hoop would have counted.

[(Anonymous)]

Goal tending calls in basketball are fairly rare - obviously basketball players are not coached to swat away any shot as if there is no penalty. The reason is that the flight of a basketball toward a basket is not easy to make an instant judgment on - you might be giving away a score on a shot that was already going to miss. With the size of the soccer goal, the player KNEW that anything within his reach would be going in.
Basketball goes through 3 levels of foul. First, before you reach the limit, it is just a foul. It can well be worth it to foul a player going for a layup. After the limit, free throws are granted, but if the basket would win the game, it is still worth even fouling out in order to give the other player at least a chance to miss the free throw. Finally, if the foul is ruled flagrant (just grabbing the other player instead of making an attempt to block the shot) the ref can grant free throws PLUS possession, an effective deterrent.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

I hadn't know Suarez was also ejected for the next game, which is good--but if he hadn't cheated to block the goal, *there wouldn't be a next game for him to play in anyway*. Still a wash.

Uruguay also lost a major player to injury. It's nearly certain they will lose their next game. But that doesn't actually help Ghana.

Your story from College Bowl would only be analogous if there were a rule against buzzing in when you haven't heard the question but did it anyway. In fact, you're sort of proving my point--Suarez smartly exploited the existing nature of the rules and penalties to cost Ghana a definite goal, and was rewarded by having his team go on to the next round. He played the game perfectly; it is the game which is broken (in this circumstance), not him.

[drelmo.livejournal.com]

Watching the World Cup and trying to get up on the traditions of association football, it seems clear that the referee has plenary and arbitrary power far in excess of any major American pro/college sport. Nothing can block the ref -- not a clock, not instant replay, not any appeal, not any other official. And the single ref is solely responsible for calls across a large field of play. And because the ref is plenary and arbitrary with a limited view, the play of the game is subject to unpredictable unfairness. This appears to be inherent in association football.

I.e., you expect, in the course of play, to be screwed; to benefit by the other team being screwed; and fairly often, to have victory be the result of being screwed or screwing.

So I do not think that the reffing has been unusual. It is built into the expectations that there will be bad and questionable calls.

You or I or any competent game designer would do things differently (e.g. moving in the direction of American football's multiple refs and call reviewing) -- but that would be changing the character of the game, like deciding that Batman didn't have a sidekick Robin. And it's not clear that the most popular sport in the world would benefit from have its character changed.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that there has been more discussion of bad calls this year in World Cups past, even by fans of teams which have benefitted from them. But that could just be a selection bias on my side. I think no one is happy at bad calls, even when they like the outcome.

[aarondf.livejournal.com]

It is an interesting situation. However, I think the rule was correctly applied and honestly think it is ok. It is a strange issue where the TIMING during the game of the rule makes such a HUGE difference. A similar thing happened in an early Australia game although in that case I don't actually think the handball (really bounced off his shoulder) was even deliberate. However, he was also given a Red card and the other team awarded a Penalty Kick which they quickly made. In this case, given the extremely high percentage of Penalty kicks made (during regular play; the ones in a shootout are not as automatic since only 1 of the 5 is taken by your team's penalty kick specialist) and how early in the game it was, the result was MUCH worse than just a goal being scored. However, as you say, at the very end of the game the Red Card matters vastly less so the calculation changes.

Anyway, I felt that Suarez made the right play under the rules and don't fault him for it at all. It was a smart play under the rules that gave his team a small chance to win the game.

Perhaps the rules should be different for the last X minutes of a game.