Along with a million other details, Major League Soccer is trying to refine this business of keeping official time on the scoreboard.
I like it. It may horrify some purists who are welded to the concept that only the referee knows how much time is left, but aside from the tension and excitement of the seconds ticking down, keeping official time in public view requires the ref’s timekeeping to be accountable.
Have we forgotten the first half of overtime in the 1990 World Cup game that ran 22 minutes?
The issue came to a head in the second week of the MLS season, when a brilliant shot by Roy Lassiter got past Dallas keeper Mark Dodd a second after the clock hit zero. No goal.
Without time on the clock, rail the purists, the referee could have allowed the goal and then gone through the sham of letting the other team kick off before ending the half. Great idea.
Yet why does the clock run when a goal is scored, or when a team makes a substitution? Coaches shouldn’t be permitted to burn time with meaningless subs in the 89th minute, and if Digital Takawira needs a few extra seconds to crawl, stop the clock and let him and his teammates and the fans celebrate.
Referees should be told to stop the clock immediately in these situations:
Goals, injuries, time-wasting.
Not too many fans know that basketball once featured a running clock that stopped only for subs. We don’t want constant stoppages, but letting time run while a goalkeeper retrieves the ball from his net is absurd.
by Soccer America Senior Editor Ridge Mahoney