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This is the thread for the sort of people who lived in a country where you didn't play football every day at school and would like to learn more about the beautiful game and why we will happily watch 90 minutes of a sport where no goals are scored and nobody wins. Maybe you've caught a couple of games on TV and would like to join in but are daunted by the prospect of reading over a decade of cryptic TRP in-jokes to work out exactly who Glen Johnson is and what he's smiling about. Maybe you've come down with a terminal case of World Cup Fever but would like to know exactly how and why your chosen team are going to be hosed over and lose to Germany. This is the thread for you. If you have a football-related question, no matter how basic, ask it in this thread and you will receive a proper answer. As long as it's not a rude comment disguised as a question, those are the worst. This thread (and only this thread) is a guaranteed troll-free zone for new people. I will be cracking down on TRP veterans who are not nice to question askers in this thread. That's the only rule. Just be constructive and show off your impressive knowledge that means you are unable to reliably remember your own birthday but can immediately remember which Football League club is nicknamed the Chairboys.
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Nov 9, 2022 23:35
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Bump as this got buried
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Nov 22, 2022 22:03
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How has the increase in the number of substitutions in recent years affected the game, and how does the soccer-watching community at large feel about that?
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Nov 22, 2022 23:18
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Apparently offside is being determined by some semi-automated triangulation algorithm or something? The Argentine goal that was offside because the dude leaned forward instead of straight up is technically offside, but is something that should be rewritten to onside
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Nov 22, 2022 23:43
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:Apparently offside is being determined by some semi-automated triangulation algorithm or something? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WycjDx6giVE The upper arm/shoulder was offside.
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Nov 22, 2022 23:46
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Zoran posted:How has the increase in the number of substitutions in recent years affected the game, and how does the soccer-watching community at large feel about that? I don't think it's fundamentally changed the nature of what the game looks like, you're not going to get dudes coming on to take corner kicks in the way that field hockey has, or anything like that. There's an argument on the club football side that it's set up to favour the richer teams and allow them to hoard a huge amount of talent on the bench. I've pointed out before that if you go and look at the Liverpool teams of the 80s or the Manchester United teams of the early 90s, you'd have more or less the same starting line-up for every game, with three or four reserve players on the bench, and that was the entire squad to play in three competitions other than some youth team lads. A team like Man City now basically has two full-strength starting XIs that they can rotate between, and can name all of them on the bench even if they don't use them. There's likely some truth in that, but it's ultimately a bone that's been thrown by the powers that be to justify putting in more games to already overpacked schedules.
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Nov 23, 2022 00:53
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the main league I watch is the english championship which went to 5 subs this season and it seems... fine. we probably won't see the effects of it until later into the season but considering the championship plays significantly more games than the premier league, it'll be interesting to see if the likes of Watford and Burnley just have too much down the line.
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Nov 23, 2022 00:59
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Zoran posted:How has the increase in the number of substitutions in recent years affected the game, and how does the soccer-watching community at large feel about that? I think most people think it’s good. As games pile up more and more players are having to play sometimes three full matches a week, which is difficult to keep up even as an athlete at the top of their game. Having the extra subs allows for more chances to at least get a breather and not have to exhaust your players at every chance. There’s also the tactical aspect allowing for more changes in formation for managers who know what they’re doing mid game. Then there’s the fact that there is much less of a chance that an injured player will have to carry on or just leave the team a man down if they get hurt. Overall I think it’s good for players, managers and fans from a health and on the pitch perspective. The counter argument is that this requires longer benches (metaphorically) and the bajillionaire teams are going to just take all the good players from smaller teams to fill those spaces. I think they were already doing this but I’d be interested in seeing if there is data showing smaller teams getting raided more often and for less money. I can definitely see it happening if it isn’t already but there are more reasons for that than just having the extra subs available.
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Nov 23, 2022 01:07
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:Apparently offside is being determined by some semi-automated triangulation algorithm or something? It seems like every year they tweak offside a little bit, and that's only gotten worse since they implemented VAR. At the moment they draw lines on the field, either by hand or using this fancy new AI CGI thing, where they measure the farthest tip of any part of your body that can play the ball and compare that to the second last defender, and if you're past that then you're offside. That's how the rule is supposed to work which is fine, but where to draw the line for which part of the body can play the ball is at times ridiculous. These days you're allowed to play the ball with your shoulder and the very upper part of your arm, roughly to the end of the jersey's short sleeve, but it seems arbitrary where that line gets drawn at times and why. The most ridiculous one in recent years was Sadio Mane had a goal chalked off here:  with the rationale being that his shoulder was bulging a little too far past the offside line so he was offside. The Premier League recently adjusted it so that supposedly they would give a bit more leeway to the attacker by drawing thicker lines and saying if the lines are close enough to touch then just call it onside, but that hasn't seemed to help much and there are still silly calls.
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Nov 23, 2022 02:32
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Using the Premier League’s attempt to judge the implementation of offside-through-VAR as a whole is akin to judging the beauty of all footballers from a Jay Spearing highlight video.
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Nov 23, 2022 03:09
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FullLeatherJacket posted:I don't think it's fundamentally changed the nature of what the game looks like, you're not going to get dudes coming on to take corner kicks in the way that field hockey has, or anything like that. Another disadvantage is that it makes it way less likely to have the always hilarious 'outfield-player-in-goal' situations
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Nov 23, 2022 04:26
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Actual question: What's the deal with China? Huge population, big on sports - and they never seem to qualify.
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Nov 23, 2022 04:35
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Alctel posted:Actual question: Also some half-hearted, vaguely racist explanation of how they are culturally or politically incompatible with the free-flowing creative beautiful game of football.
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Nov 23, 2022 04:39
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Alctel posted:Actual question: They started making a big push to develop more a while ago but that sort of fizzled out when a lot of the Chinese league teams collapsed (or at least started banning foreign players since most of the owners were money laundering iirc). It's the sort of thing that takes a generation or two to really have an impact so it probably ended up in the too hard basket. It's taken Qatar nearly 20 years to develop from a joke nation to a slightly-smaller joke nation, and a lot of that has been from scouting kids in developing countries, training them up in Qatar and nationalising them. I don't think China's govt would be too keen on handing out citizenship to third-tier Brazilian players.
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Nov 23, 2022 04:50
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vyelkin posted:It seems like every year they tweak offside a little bit, and that's only gotten worse since they implemented VAR. At the moment they draw lines on the field, either by hand or using this fancy new AI CGI thing, where they measure the farthest tip of any part of your body that can play the ball and compare that to the second last defender, and if you're past that then you're offside. That's how the rule is supposed to work which is fine, but where to draw the line for which part of the body can play the ball is at times ridiculous. These days you're allowed to play the ball with your shoulder and the very upper part of your arm, roughly to the end of the jersey's short sleeve, but it seems arbitrary where that line gets drawn at times and why. That thicker line/more leeway is going away when Premier League is going to have semi-automated offside technology (SAOT) next season. IFAB adjusted to the thicker lines for VAR offside where the VAR official to manually figuring out the location to draw the lines. With SAOT, the thicker lines will go away and we will back to the old thin line that was used in the first season of VAR like that Mane offside. Alctel posted:Actual question: Huge population does not usually equal success. Look at the US, they got a giant population and their team is only getting somewhat to average standard against the world. Also, China for sports is largely focused on Olympics and individual sports and usually parents try to steer their kids to education or the individual sport as that is where the government has been putting pressure on. They tried to have more focus in soccer but that only lasted for a couple of years before they told everyone to stop investing in soccer.
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Nov 23, 2022 06:56
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Yeah, soccer is a terrible sport to invest in if you are a nation trying to bolster your international prestige through sport. It is such an inherently collective game that even if you manage to produce players good enough to play at the top leagues, that guarantees nothing. The US went from fielding teams of semi-pro players in 90 and 94 to having several good enough to make it to the top level of European leagues, but not much has changed in terms of international success. Nigeria is one of the top producers of talented players, but manages to be even less successful than the US.
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Nov 23, 2022 07:48
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There’s a qualifying ratio between Gold Cups and AFCON’s in terms of difficulty and prestige to make that last argument a bit shaky
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Nov 23, 2022 08:50
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Total Meatlove posted:There’s a qualifying ratio between Gold Cups and AFCON’s in terms of difficulty and prestige to make that last argument a bit shaky I wasn't talking about Gold Cups (lol) and Cup of Nations, but world cup performance.
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Nov 23, 2022 09:27
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I think if you care about international prestige through being good at sport (which is different from international prestige from hosting sport, like Qatar are going for), it's much more cost-effective to invest in individual sports than team ones, especially team ones where other countries are already historically good at them. Invest in gymnastics and swimming and so on, and ten years from now you can have a number of Olympic gold medalists in return for a relatively small amount of money by sports investment standards. Invest in football and maybe twenty years from now you can go home in a World Cup quarterfinal, for a relatively large amount of money by sports investment standards.
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Nov 23, 2022 14:28
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Do they have some way of determining when exactly the game ends? It always felt like the refs kind of guesstimate the time lost doing non-play related things, but is there an actual time keeper who tracks when exactly the game comes to an end? If it really is up to the refs entirely, what are some controversial decisions that affected major games?
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Nov 23, 2022 15:47
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Trickortreat posted:Do they have some way of determining when exactly the game ends? It always felt like the refs kind of guesstimate the time lost doing non-play related things, but is there an actual time keeper who tracks when exactly the game comes to an end? At the World Cup, Brazil once scored from a corner kick in stoppage time but then it turned out the ref had blown the whistle while the ball was in the air after the corner kick was taken but before the ball had reached the penalty area and been headed in.
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Nov 23, 2022 15:49
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To answer the more basic question, yes, it's up to the ref. They're supposed to keep track of both the official game clock, which never stops, and the actual amount of playing time, which isn't supposed to count time taken up by stuff like goal celebrations, substitutions, injuries, VAR stoppages, timewasting, etc. I think they at least used to do this by having two watches on, one that they set at the beginning of each half and keep running and one that they start and stop when the ball is out of play, but there's probably a more advanced system for it these days. The stoppage time added at this World Cup is a lot longer than usual, by design, because usually stoppage time does a bad job of actually compensating for how much time the ball spends not in play. Outside this World Cup, it isn't uncommon to have a second half where there are, for example, six substitutions, three goals and goal celebrations, and a lengthy stoppage for VAR to analyze a potential penalty, and then at the end the ref just chucks on three minutes and calls it a day. The stoppage time added at this World Cup are substantially longer than normal but they're probably more in line with how stoppage time is actually supposed to be calculated.
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Nov 23, 2022 16:05
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Trickortreat posted:Do they have some way of determining when exactly the game ends? It always felt like the refs kind of guesstimate the time lost doing non-play related things, but is there an actual time keeper who tracks when exactly the game comes to an end? A ref ended a game between Tunisia and Mali at the 85 minute mark during the African Cup of Nations, when Mali were winning 1-0. No, really. Dell_Zincht fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Nov 23, 2022 |
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Nov 23, 2022 16:41
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joepinetree posted:Yeah, soccer is a terrible sport to invest in if you are a nation trying to bolster your international prestige through sport. It is such an inherently collective game that even if you manage to produce players good enough to play at the top leagues, that guarantees nothing. The US went from fielding teams of semi-pro players in 90 and 94 to having several good enough to make it to the top level of European leagues, but not much has changed in terms of international success. Nigeria is one of the top producers of talented players, but manages to be even less successful than the US. To kind of follow on this, the US men's team does mediocrely but the women's team does very well. Is that more a function of the US giving actual money to the women's game vs the  amounts most countries put? (I know things are changing on this front in Europe at least)
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Nov 23, 2022 19:30
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Mecca-Benghazi posted:To kind of follow on this, the US men's team does mediocrely but the women's team does very well. Is that more a function of the US giving actual money to the women's game vs the its definitely partly that, but also cultural I think. I get the impression that football is (or was at least) seen as a 'women's sport' in the US, which probably both contributes to boosting the number of girls who take up the sport and simultaneously depressing the number of boys that do. Probably the opposite was historically true in many countries where football is the premier men's team sport.
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Nov 23, 2022 19:52
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Mecca-Benghazi posted:To kind of follow on this, the US men's team does mediocrely but the women's team does very well. Is that more a function of the US giving actual money to the women's game vs the Fifa's numbers put something like the US having 53% of all female soccer players around the world. In women's world cups, USA games frequently sell out, while other nations play in half empty stadiums. The 2007 Brazilian team that was runner up in the Women's World Cup included 3 players who worked full time as hotel maids.
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Nov 23, 2022 20:55
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Mecca-Benghazi posted:To kind of follow on this, the US men's team does mediocrely but the women's team does very well. Is that more a function of the US giving actual money to the women's game vs the There has been more investment from US to women's football compared to other countries for a long time. Also Title IX has helped on the US women soccer end. However, all the other big football nations are rapidly catching up now that they are investing and focusing more on it while the US women soccer coaching has been getting stale. It will be interesting how close it is in the 2023 WWC for other countries to US and whether they have supplanted them.
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Nov 23, 2022 20:55
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Women's football in the US might be the only case where the college system proved to be beneficial over the traditional (or really, non existent in most places) academy system.
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Nov 23, 2022 20:57
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Gigi Galli posted:Women's football in the US might be the only case where the college system proved to be beneficial over the traditional (or really, non existent in most places) academy system. For sure. Marta used to live, as a 14 year old girl, by herself in the training facilities of Vasco da Gama when she was starting out. When Vasco closed their women's team, she moved to a tiny town in Minas Gerais to once again sleep at a training facility of a small women's team. She got insanely lucky that she was discovered there by a Swedish team and was able to go pro. Brazil now has a women's league. Top salary in Brazil for a female soccer player is aroung R$5000 a month, or slightly less than US$900 a month.
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Nov 23, 2022 21:04
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Explain formations to me. Do you select a team around a particular formation or pick the best formation according to the players you have? Are formations kind of like a paper scissors rock thing where some have big advantages over the others?
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Nov 24, 2022 02:14
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Charles 2 of Spain posted:Explain formations to me. Do you select a team around a particular formation or pick the best formation according to the players you have? Are formations kind of like a paper scissors rock thing where some have big advantages over the others? It's an ideological choice. Some managers favour specific formations and more importantly the playstyles in those systems while other managers are flexible and will play whatever their players suit. There are some formations that specifically exploit others, for example when it was expected that all English teams played 4-4-2 teams in continental competitions and the world cup would simply shift to a 4-3-3 or a 3-5-2 and have extra men in midfield to dominate the game but generally a formation dosen't tell the whole story and pep guardiola playing 4-3-3 looks very different to sean dyche playing 4-3-3
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Nov 24, 2022 02:39
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Charles 2 of Spain posted:Explain formations to me. Do you select a team around a particular formation or pick the best formation according to the players you have? Are formations kind of like a paper scissors rock thing where some have big advantages over the others? In recent years, formations have become a more fluid thing. You could start with three at the back but end up defending with four men most of the game. You could have two central defenders but your midfielder drops back so regularly that it looks more like three. No mainstream formation has some massive advantage over another. It’s very much about how your players work within that formation: what instructions they’re given, how often they track back, what areas they target when attacking. But I think there are some conventions. Like, you usually want one more defender than the other side’s strikers. You usually want to at least match the number of central midfielders the other side has. If the other side has a wingback and a wide forward, you usually want to make sure your fullback has support from an extra player — either a spare central defender or a midfielder or a hardworking wide forward. The blog Zonal Marking hasn’t been updated in a long time — the dude writes for the athletic now — but it’s a good read on this sort of stuff.
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Nov 24, 2022 02:50
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Charles 2 of Spain posted:Explain formations to me. Do you select a team around a particular formation or pick the best formation according to the players you have? Are formations kind of like a paper scissors rock thing where some have big advantages over the others? First and foremost you normally go with a formation that best fits the best 11 you can put out to try and win football matches. There are of course managers that have a preferred style of play and formation/formations (normally 1 or 2 though there are exceptions to the norm) but you expect them to recruit players to fit those systems. The most attacking formation you typically see in the modern game is the 4-3-3. Two playmaking/box to box number 8s in midfield with either a number 6 defensive minded midfielder or even another box to box 8 depending on the ability of the teams involved. The full backs bomb on to provide more width and overloads out wide with the wide forwards where the full backs can under or overlap. The 4-3-3 can match the midfield for numbers against the and 3-5-2/3-4-3 and outnumber the 4-4-2 and 4-2-3-1. However for it to work well those 3 midfielders need to be good especially the deeper lying 6. 4-2-3-1 aims to sit two of the midfield closer to the back four and usually play a bit deeper providing additional defensive cover. It still offers good attacking patterns of play as the full backs are still expected to provide width, however low blocks are harder to play through due to the usual lesser creative quality in midfield. 4-2-3-1 is popular with counter attacking teams, 4-3-3 works well with a high press and possession football. 3 at the back is popular in leagues like Serie A that trend toward defensive solidity first. In international football and usually in the premier league 3 at the back is deployed by teams sacrificing an attacker for another defender because they don't trust any pairing of 2 CBs in the squad. In this formation the full backs become wing backs, with a starting position slightly higher up the pitch but still expected to track opposing wide players when out of defence, with their side centre back providing cover if the wing back gets caught in a 2v1. You can play more with the make up of the 3 in midfield with the 3-5-2 though since you've already got an extra defender. Teams will often take up different formations depending on whether in or out of possession. The team's given formation is usually what you'd expect in possession, most teams drop into two banks of 4, or a back 5 when out of possession and defending, assuming they're not running a high press which is different again! This is by no means complete, formations are quite fluid during a match and as mentioned, one manager's 4-3-3 will be very different to another's but there are general principles you expect to see with each one.
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Nov 24, 2022 02:59
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Another thing to remember is that managers will often adjust their tactics and formations based on what they think the opposition will do. This doesn't always apply, eg Spain probably wouldn't have worried too much about what Costa Rica might do, but Costa Rica absolutely would have set up their formation and game plan based on what they thought Spain would do. As a simple example, if you're playing a team with a big powerful centre forward, you'll want your tallest and strongest defenders. If you're playing a team like France whose plan is to get really fast attackers like Mbappe and Dembele down the wings and into the channels (the spaces between centre backs and left/right backs), you'll want faster defenders. Or maybe you'll deploy more men into midfield to break up possession and stop the speed merchants getting the ball in dangerous areas. But maybe deploying those extra men in midfield means extra space elsewhere on the pitch for opponents to exploit! For a game that's ultimately just kicking a ball around, there's a colossal amount of tactical thought underpinning the modern game.
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Nov 24, 2022 03:24
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Thanks for the answers! Maybe relatedly, another thing I remember from ages ago is Spain and (maybe Barcelona?) using tiki-taka to bore the poo poo out of everyone which was supposed to be the final form of football until teams worked out how to wreck it. Does this still have some influence? I see people making jokes about triangles and 10 midfielders so I assume it's still a thing?
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Nov 24, 2022 03:47
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It's not really a dominant style of play anymore, though a lot of teams play possession-based football which kind of evolved from it. Teams just figured out better ways to counter it, with tactics like a high press (using your attackers to pressure the defenders passing it around and disrupting the rhythm), or a low block and counterattack (defending close to your own box with 10 guys behind the ball, closing off the space, hopefully forcing a turnover or interception and then breaking quickly upfield while they have a lot of men committed). iirc the triangles thing was just an insanely bad post about endless passing and tiki-taka, though someone better-versed in TRP lore can fill you in on that
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Nov 24, 2022 04:01
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This video is an interesting take on the idea that formations barely exist in modern football anymore, and while I don't necessarily agree, teams definitely often have two or more preferred formations even in the same game, depending on if they are in or out of possession. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vljh9olDVK0
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Nov 24, 2022 10:21
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Triangles is a famous Suqit post, he’s a Barcelona fan and the point he posted it was probably the nadir of tiki taka football. Also Busquets is the dirtiest player to ever play football and a good 90% of tiki taka’s success was borne from those teams being allowed to foul in midfield with impunity to restore possession.
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Nov 24, 2022 11:09
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Total Meatlove posted:Triangles is a famous Suqit post, he’s a Barcelona fan and the point he posted it was probably the nadir of tiki taka football. Huge headed oval office with stupid cutlery posted:Let me share some unique Barcelona soccer experience with you, in this very thread, because you are missing the subtlety. Instead of following the ball, follow the off ball movement. Look for triangles to appear, dissolve and then reappear right before your eyes. Watch as player's heads swivel to find the man making the run for the second pass, not the first. Watch the tight control and decision making. Don't appreciate the pass that was made, appreciate the pass that wasn't because it was more difficult and less likely to be successful.
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Nov 24, 2022 11:25
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I can’t even remember the cutlery posting but triangles is forever burned in my brain
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Nov 24, 2022 12:38
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