[Mongoose]

I certainly would, personally.  I know there was a "golden goal" sudden-death concept tried in certain international tournaments, but for whatever reason it didn't stick.  And for me soccer is the absolutely ideal sort of sport for a sudden-death setup: scoring is (relatively speaking) a rare event, so the first team to do so should get to walk off right then and there.

And yeah, no one was saying that the act of being tied at some point during a game was a bad thing; that would just be silly.  It's the result that counts, and like we just saw, a tie result at the end makes me feel like I just wasted 90 minutes of sitting there with no conclusion.  Probably my main overall gripe with soccer as a sport is that scoreless ties are an extremely-regular occurrence...which at least as far as I'm concerned means that there's something fundamentally broken about its mechanics.

[Scotty]

Everything I've said until now should point to that, yes.  Ties are one of the great frustrations in major sports from my perspective.

Also, did anyone else notice that the judges added an additional minute to the injury time a little while in?

[Mongoose]

Oh yeah.  I could start a whole other rant on the concept of injury time, though.

[Lorric]

It's funny, a tie between Germany and US will send both through now... and with a German manager in charge of the US, tongues will be wagging if the game is tied...

Everything I've said until now should point to that, yes.

I expected you would think so, yes. I wonder why MLS dropped those reforms if the American public want winners and losers. All I know is they tried it for awhile and then dropped it.

There are complaints about tiredness over a season these days, especially here in England in the Premier League. A Premier League season is simply the most gruelling in Europe, so I imagine they'd have to have a penalty shootout straight after the 90mins in all tied games in a league, and give 2pts to the winner of that shootout and 1pt to the loser.

Hell, bring it on in the Premier League, it will give the English players lots of practice in penalty shootouts!

It probably wouldn't bother me if such a thing was done. I don't mind ties at all, but that doesn't mean I WANT them, I simply don't mind them. And penalty shootouts are fun when you're not an England fan watching England.

Oh yeah.  I could start a whole other rant on the concept of injury time, though.

Go ahead. I'd be happy to discuss that too if you want another split. I don't know how you'd fix it in football though if you brought in a stop the clock while the ball is out of play system. 45min halves would have to be replaced by a new time, but injury time can be very inaccurate. It would be jarring to lose the 45min halves and injury time, but I wouldn't mind if the new time made matches last a similar length to what they do now, it would do a lot to combat time wasting.

[Mongoose]

No we're not splitting another thread out just for that.

It's such a blindingly-simple solution, though: just stop the damn clock when there's an injury or other random stoppage of play, like every other time-based sport I can think of.  You restart it when play resumes, and so when the clock hits 45 or 90 on the nose, the half is over.  Nothing else about the game needs to change; you'd just be eliminating the nonsensical hand-waving over how much time should or shouldn't be arbitrarily tacked onto the end.

[Scotty]

There, now we don't need another topic.

And I'm in 100% agreement with Mongoose on this one.  It's such a silly thing to have in this day and age of video replays when you can determine to the tenth of a second when the ball went out of play or a player got injured.

[Lorric]

There, now we don't need another topic.

I suppose it would work if only applied to substitutions and when someone was down, rather than having to do it for all stoppages. I guess it's just that I'd like to see all time wasting eliminated by going the whole way, necessitating a change in the minutes as then you'd be stopping the clock for all times when the ball was out of play. There would be the complication of syncing up the time though, the referee would have to stop the clock and this would have to sync up with the TV broadcasts and the scoreboard showing the clock. Other sports that stop the clock afaik stop the clock for every stoppage, so it's simple, the clock stops when the whistle blows. But if you stopped the clock for every stoppage in football, then you'd need a new match time, as injury time doesn't count the likes of throw ins and free kicks.

I wish football would come out of the stone age and embrace technology. They seem to have loved playing with their new goal-line technology toy at this World Cup though, and they brought in the spray even though it's been around for a while, so hopefully this will encourage future change. All these refereeing controversies we've had, I would LOVE a vid ref to be next on the agenda.

[FrikgFeek]

I still don't see double elimination being fair, as with the current format it's possible for 3 teams to win 2 games and lose 1. Winning 2 games shouldn't give you a bye. And you keep saying that a tie isn't a conclusion, which is something I don't understand. Wouldn't that imply that 2 teams can't be equally strong at any given moment? And especially in a tournament setting, getting a tie in a game everyone expects you to lose is a big achievement. I don't know how much you know about ancient literature, but wrestling a tie against a force much greater than you has been a concept since the Epics of Uruk, around 2000 B.C.

And speaking of underdogs, ties give them a chance against big teams, as smaller teams usually have shorter benches and can't handle playing for over 90 minutes. Overtimes are a luxury that small teams simply can't afford.
And sudden-death golden goals were used in the same way overtime is used now. The reason it didn't stick is because players are exhausted during overtime, and having 1-2 fresh players run offensively is much easier than getting your 5 exhausted defence players to run. Offence is naturally stronger during overtime, putting an even greater emphasis on it just makes the whole thing extremely volatile.

In a head to head contest of skill, if there is no winner than there is no contest.

I simply don't understand how a tie can render the whole contest invalid, and I probably never will. You're welcome to try to explain it to me though.

[Scotty]

It admittedly has far more to do with the fans than it does the sport itself (though that isn't absent).  Putting it in as plain a terms as I can: I am not personally satisfied in the event of a tie.  It reeks of anticlimax, and if you're going to have a contest to determine who is better at <insert sport> then having a result where neither team is proven to be the better (even if only for <time of gameplay>) annoys me.

I can handle losing.  I don't like neither winning nor losing.

[karajorma]

Ah, but surely both teams can be about equal level in skill. Going until one of them wins may simply prove who was luckier. Especially when you consider how that would be decided if extra time fails to yield a victory for either team.

I certainly would, personally.  I know there was a "golden goal" sudden-death concept tried in certain international tournaments, but for whatever reason it didn't stick.  And for me soccer is the absolutely ideal sort of sport for a sudden-death setup: scoring is (relatively speaking) a rare event, so the first team to do so should get to walk off right then and there.

Actually the golden goal is a perfect example of why ties should be a feature of football. They were introduced for exactly the reasons you suggested, to make games into sudden death competitions. Instead however they had the effect of disincentivising players to go forwards because the risk of a break and a game winning goal was far too great. Games with the golden goal rule in place quickly became boring because both teams preferred to take no chances with the main game and instead go for a penalty shoot-out.

And that would be the biggest problem with going for a double elimination route. You'd end up with half the teams going home on penalties rather than the quality of the actual game. It just doesn't seem like a good way to resolve things.

[Mongoose]

Actually the golden goal is a perfect example of why ties should be a feature of football. They were introduced for exactly the reasons you suggested, to make games into sudden death competitions. Instead however they had the effect of disincentivising players to go forwards because the risk of a break and a game winning goal was far too great. Games with the golden goal rule in place quickly became boring because both teams preferred to take no chances with the main game and instead go for a penalty shoot-out.

Now see, that's exactly the attitude that I (and I suspect most of my countrymen) find so disdainful.  It just feels completely foreign to me.  When you go out there on the field/court/pitch, you play to win, period.  Otherwise why even bother?  Intentionally sitting on your heels for a whole overtime just because there's a chance the other team would score seems like the height of cowardice.

And yeah, I know that's probably shading towards the whole 'MURIKA! stereotype, but I think it applies well to sports.

[Scotty]

Agreed.  If you're not playing to win you shouldn't be playing.

EDIT:  Note, when I say that I'm talking about professional competition.  A friendly pick-up game or even something like intramurals it's totally fine to not be cutthroat.

[General Battuta]

What Kara's describing sounds exactly like playing to win. They're adjusting their tactics to game the new rules. It's just like bunting or an onside kick.

[Scotty]

I think there's a fundamental difference between playing to win and playing to not lose.  What Kara's describing sounds significantly closer to the latter than the former.

[Lorric]

There's a different reason I don't like the golden goal, and that is the possibility that the team that kicks off can potentially go and score straight away without the other team touching the ball.

EDIT: I suppose that could be solved though by starting things off with a drop ball.

[Mongoose]

What Kara's describing sounds exactly like playing to win. They're adjusting their tactics to game the new rules. It's just like bunting or an onside kick.

Except in both of those cases, the actions in question are done with the intent to score.  You bunt to advance a runner into scoring position, and you attempt an onside kick to get back on offense.  That's pretty much the exact opposite of sitting back on your heels.

There's a different reason I don't like the golden goal, and that is the possibility that the team that kicks off can potentially go and score straight away without the other team touching the ball.

What are the odds of that, though?  I mean I know goals can get scored early, since the US just did it, but soccer is a sport in which possession changes occur very frequently.

[Lorric]

There's a different reason I don't like the golden goal, and that is the possibility that the team that kicks off can potentially go and score straight away without the other team touching the ball.

What are the odds of that, though?  I mean I know goals can get scored early, since the US just did it, but soccer is a sport in which possession changes occur very frequently.

I put an edit into that post to say it could be solved with a drop ball to start things off, and if they did that, it would solve the problem. But if they don't do that, I'm opposed to it simply because even though it's rare, it's possible, and thus gives the team which kicks off a slight advantage.

I'd also consider this to count for until the other team is in control of the ball, not just touching it. Say for example the first team kicks off, and there's a tackle but the loose ball still goes to a member of the attacking team. Then there's a foul and a free kick, and the free kick is knocked out for a corner, the corner is then headed out for another corner, and then the team scores off that corner and wins the game. This could be the third minute by this time, yet the other team has been on defence the whole time.

EDIT: Oh and there are other factors, like if you're playing against a strong wind and rain in your face in that first half, so that's an advantage to the other team.

[Mongoose]

Well, that's just part of playing the game.  One could easily make the argument that the defending team should have played better and taken possession.

[Lorric]

Well, that's just part of playing the game.  One could easily make the argument that the defending team should have played better and taken possession.

It's still unfair though. They might have defended as well as they possibly could.

Sudden death overtime works brilliantly for ice hockey, but it just doesn't fit football. In ice hockey, it's an indoor arena, so the conditions are equal for both teams, there's a face off on the ice to start things off so no one starts with an edge, and there are lots of interchangeable players so they can just keep going.

[General Battuta]

What Kara's describing sounds exactly like playing to win. They're adjusting their tactics to game the new rules. It's just like bunting or an onside kick.

Except in both of those cases, the actions in question are done with the intent to score.  You bunt to advance a runner into scoring position, and you attempt an onside kick to get back on offense.  That's pretty much the exact opposite of sitting back on your heels.

It's the opposite of the opposite! You play to win, not to comply with some code of honor. If you're ahead in American football, you try to run the clock down. If you're ahead in basketball, you play lead protection. If you think you're going to win in sudden death, you play to get to sudden death.

You guys have a weird idea of how competition works.