re: The Penalty Box is too gotdamn big

couldn't find it.....soccer stats are the fricking worst to find

someone please...USA total shots vs total goals

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Far too many games are decided by officials whether it be erroneous PKs, red cards, card accumulation in tournaments (single worst rule in sports) etc...

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I mostly agree. The game has become too fast to rely on one official alone. The only solution in my view is to add more technology to augment referee decisions but how to implement that is a difficult discussion. I'm hoping individual leaves and FA's start leading the way as FIFA is too large and cumbersome organization to deal with those types of changes directly.

Things off the top of my head I would change...

1. Yellow card accumulation- so dumb it speaks for itself.

2. Give refs ability to use discretion on fouls in the box. Meaning a foul on a player who is no threat to score or create a chance does not automatically result in a PK.

3. Red cards always equaling playing a man down. If a player receives two yellows I think the team should be able to replace the player. A team should only go down a man if the player commits a violent offense or denies a clear goal/goal scoring opportunity (i.e. Suarez vs. Ghana or Puyol vs. Netherlands).

4. Not a fan of PKs deciding games. I wish they would go straight to Golden Goal after 90 min and play until someone scores. I would be fine with allowing an additional sub every 10 min. or so.

5. Use better judgement in deciding whether or not to uphold/levy out suspensions after the match. Like crazy said, the game sometimes moves too fast for the officials and that's understandable to a degree. However, it's absurd that Torres red card against Man United stood and resulted in a suspension for the next game while Sergio Aguero went unpunished for his two footed diving lunge into David Luiz in the FA Cup semi.

I understand not wanting to institute a bunch of replays that would slow down a match, but if a ref makes a mistake or misses something during the match it makes no sense not to correct it after the fact.

6. Become much stricter in handing out match bans for obvious dives after matches. This simple obvious solution would virtually eradicate this stain on the game.

7. Don't award World Cups to shite nations.

Some of those suggestions would give refs too much power. A foul in the box is a foul in the box. The line between the possibility of a chance being created and not created with a foul in the box is too blurry. It's not like refs are trigger happy to call PKs. It's much more common that clear penalties are not given as a result of referee reluctance to affect the game too much.

The danger with adding a red card nuance is that it could be akin to adding an extra sub. Increasing the number of subs might help mitigate that but it's a delicate balance. Any change could create loopholes that will always be controversial.

I mean, changing the offside law in 2004 basically created a completely different style of game that favored possession over pace and power. Any whole scale changes will affect the game in ways we cannot foresee.

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Some of those suggestions would give refs too much power. A foul in the box is a foul in the box. The line between the possibility of a chance being created and not created with a foul in the box is too blurry.

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It's not perfect but I think it would be an improvement. Sometimes there are obvious fouls on players that are clearly not threatening to score. The PK for Spain vs. Brazil is one example. Also (and this is the one that really irks me) when a player is running to a ball that is like 2 yards from the end line and the goalie is coming out for it and the player gets there first but clearly knocks the ball out of bounds and then falls over the goalie. I've seen a PK given in that situation soooo many times. The player had 0.00000% chance to do anything with the ball after they knocked it out of bounds. Give the goalie a yellow if you must and let it be a goal kick like it was gonna be anyway.

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The danger with adding a red card nuance is that it could be akin to adding an extra sub. Increasing the number of subs might help mitigate that but it's a delicate balance. Any change could create loopholes that will always be controversial.

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I would just say it counts as one of your three subs. If you've already used your three subs you can't replace the player, much like what happens with an injury now. It would force the manager to have to be more careful with his substitutions if he had multiple players on yellows.

Change can be good, how silly does it seem now that up until the early 90s (or somewhere around there) players could play the ball back to the keeper and they could use their hands?

I would be ok with them using some sort of the soft red system. If a player gets 2 yellows he is ejected, but the team can sub for him if they have a substitution available.

You have to be kidding.

That was obviously a penalty. It's not even debatable.

Putting away a PK means more than one dunk so yeah it warrants a celebration.