It Would Appear Once Again That #ChiefWasRight. Brilliant Former Manager Arsene Wenger To Propose Offside Rule Change
I've jumped head first into soccer the last 4 years now. Early mornings on the weekends, gambling losses, two trips to England for games, and stitches celebrating a goal. It's been great. I love the game, but at the same time there are aspects that absolutely INFURIATE me. Offsides and VAR being at the top of the list. You can't even celebrate goals because you're always waiting for the review where a guy 30 yards away from the play might have had his nose hairs untrimmed that day. And I say might've because you can't even slow the frame rate down to perfectly tell when the ball was played. I've been banging this drum for years. Soccer guys like Troopz and Sam's Army said that I am an idiot and a noob and all that for this take below
The way to fix that change the determining edge of offsides. Instead having it be offsides if a guy's eyebrow, nose, or toenail is beyond the final defender, make it so as long as any part of the attacking player is overlapping with the last defender then he is onsides. That would give the attacking player a slight advantage. Slight. We might get more games that end 3-2, but this rule wouldn't lead to 6-5 games. The soul of the game would remain intact.
The pushback from Sam was "it gives the attack a monumental advantage". Look at those images above and tell me that is a huge advantage. It's not. This rule will not change the way a defender defends. They still have to mark their man and be aware of where they are on the field. Sam also said that this would make the linesman's job impossible. I call bullshit on that one. That makes no sense. It is MUCH easier to tell if a player has 99% of his body onsides than it is to tell if someone has 1% of their body off.
Troopz said "if you're off you're off" and said that my problem is more with VAR and he would get rid of VAR. That is a contradiction. You can't say "if your nose is off you're off" and then say you want to get rid of VAR because they ONLY way to tell if someone's nose is offsides is by looking at VAR. Either you want it to be to the letter of the law or you don't. If you're a person who says "if you're off you're off" then you have ZERO place to complain about VAR slowing everything down.
Just because I am "new" to the sport doesn't mean that I am wrong. Now I've got Arsene Wegner on my side. This would basically fix everything. VAR controversies would be essentially minimalized. You'd have more goals. More organic real time celebrations. Fucking LIMBS everywhere. This would be a genuine improvement to the game without fundamentally changing how the game is played. It makes too much sense. It is essentially putting the game play back to what made it the beautiful game.
If I was right about that...I think I am right about playoffs at the end of the year. Scrap the League Cup and keep the FA Cup. Have the midweek games typically used for League Cup be filled by Premier League games. Then have a knockout style tournament at the end of the year. Games hosted by the higher seed. Who wouldn't want to watch this?
1) Man City vs 16) Brentford
8) Man United vs 9) West Ham
4) Aston Villa vs 13) Fulham
5) Spurs vs 12) Bournemouth
2) Arsenal vs 15) Everton
7) Newcastle vs 10) Crystal Palace
3) Liverpool vs 14) Wolves
6) Chelsea vs 11) Brighton
You could even play the Final in America just to squeeze every last dollar out of this thing. The Premier League is always looking for ways to make more money. This would be it. TV rights and tickets would be through the roof. Circle back in a few years and tell me I am right.