MY VIEW: Leave the Goals Alone!
MLS has apparently backed off from its rash statement that it will use larger goals for the 1996 season if FIFA approves the experiment. It might choose bigger goals for 1997.
But MLS owners have backed off not because they have no way to assess if a slightly bigger goal could increase scoring, nor because they realize a new league has no base of statistics for comparison. Nothing logical.
Instead, they feel it’s too much trouble so close to the start of the season.
Still left glaringly unanswered, though, is how certain MLS owners with virtually no knowledge of the game could reach an informed decision. During discussion of rule changes last month, one team official cited innovations from other sports, such as the “glowing puck” now used by the NHL.
The GM of another team had to point out only the TV audience saw a “trail” of color to help viewers follow the puck, and that fans in the arena saw nothing different.
How many goals per game is enough for people ignorant of soccer’s beauties, restrictions and challenges? And if larger goals don’t increase the scoring enough (who decides what is “enough”), will the goal grow again the following year? And the next?
A ball can easily fit inside a square foot, and there are 192 square feet of space in a regulation frame. Plenty of room, but not automatic, either. Difficult. A test of skill and nerve. Just the way it should be.
Crack down on hack defenders so the creative players can play, and suspend the chronic choppers. Move back the wall on free kicks, maybe to 15 yards. Favor the offense in offside decisions. But leave the goals alone.
by Soccer America senior editor Ridge Mahoney