League 1 America: The Soccer Revolution That Never Was

March 2, 2016 4:10 AM

As the US searched for a new league after the 1994 World Cup, a rival to MLS emerged – complete with four goalmouths and striped pitches. [slGuardian]
posted by ellieBOA (26 comments total)

Involving a constant flow over two 45-minute periods, soccer does not allow easily for speculation, as focus needs to be on the game at all times, Paglia said.

This guy never watched a soccer match with my family or friends then.
posted by Pendragon at 4:16 AM on March 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

What an insane concept. I remember people thinking MLS were Molotov-throwing anarchists for things like a countdown clock and draw-avoiding shootouts. If this thing had taken off (which, no, it never was going to) the rest of the soccer world would have literally laughed the US off the pitch of any future international matches.
posted by Rock Steady at 5:50 AM on March 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

Ctrl-F "larger goals".
posted by colie at 5:53 AM on March 2, 2016

As much as I believe the International Board are stuck in a decade long past, this is coming up with a new football code than actually tweaking soccer for US audiences (like the running shootouts). Thankfully the MLS has became it's own thing inside world football without having to rely on gimmicks.
Soccer does need to come up with some changes, like removing the wall in blatantly unsportsmanlike behaviour outside the box, while at the same time reducing the number of fouls that result in direct free kicks (decreasing the impact from awarding penalties in non-obvious chances, such as handballs on crosses or players having faint legs when they're not running at goal but are nonetheless touched). But those changes must be made across the board, as much as I believe the whole "the same game in the world cup final as it is with 8 kids kicking a ball in the beach" is bullcrap, it is essentially true.

That said, I like the idea of sports with variable scoring. Once I came up with a thing where the playing field would be a circle with a 35 meter radius and a tall pole on the middle. The goal would be to hit as far and as high as possible, as there would be a point for each meter away from the post, as well as a multiplier for hitting the top quarter of said pole. Never tried, but the idea of a game being decided by a 68-point out of nowhere could make things interesting.
posted by lmfsilva at 6:02 AM on March 2, 2016

Never tried, but the idea of a game being decided by a 68-point out of nowhere could make things interesting.

cf. "Quidditch"
posted by Rock Steady at 6:44 AM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

My weekend job is working in a control room for major network sports coverage. Having seen it work for a while now, I'd be willing to bet that there not being a serious push has to do with the amount of stoppage of play they could require for commercials being limited. If they could cram in lots of commercials, including requiring mandatory play stoppage for commercial time the networks would spend the money to popularize it.
posted by nevercalm at 6:49 AM on March 2, 2016

four goalmouths

[Humbug, I was hoping someone had decided to implement my four-teams-on-a-square-field concept. Three goals to attack and one to defend, with the winner determined by goal difference.]

This is not that at all (I actually don't hate the colored lines, which seem clearer to me than the parallax-inducing offsides determination).
posted by Octaviuz at 6:59 AM on March 2, 2016

First, he felt that soccer needed to be made simpler for new fans to understand.

This is supposed to be simpler than regular soccer? In what way?
posted by TedW at 7:01 AM on March 2, 2016 [9 favorites]

[Humbug, I was hoping someone had decided to implement my four-teams-on-a-square-field concept. Three goals to attack and one to defend, with the winner determined by goal difference.]


There are a lot of 43-Man Squamish fields that can be tweaked and repurposed.
posted by delfin at 7:07 AM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

I was hoping to find a better explanation of whatever ProZone Soccer is (the description in the article is hand-wavy at best), but unfortunately there's some kind of stats analysis company called that, clogging up the Googles.
posted by General Malaise at 7:12 AM on March 2, 2016

I was hoping someone had decided to implement my four-teams-on-a-square-field concept.
Would just three teams do anything for you?

This is supposed to be simpler than regular soccer? In what way?
If I read it right, tactically. Soccer has double the field players of basketball, in a much larger field. There might be 3 or 4 players doing moves without the ball to create a scoring chance for another player. This was supposed to make more obvious each tactical choice.
posted by lmfsilva at 7:16 AM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Players would also wear different coloured shirts based on their positions to help distinguish the zones they were allowed to enter – red for defenders, blue for midfielders, yellow for forwards, white for strikers. (Defenders, diagrams showed, could only go 45 yards from the opposition’s goal but 15 yards from their own goal, for example.)

The different colors of the uniforms reminds me of a similar uniform experiment that the WFL (World Football Leauge) attempted during its brief 1974-75 run.
posted by stannate at 7:18 AM on March 2, 2016

I don't think the American viewing public, as a general rule, has any interest in watching a sport where we have zero chance of winning championships (except for people who have cultural ties to another nation that does). MLS teams do varying degrees of OK in terms of attendance, but nothing approaching other sports.

So what FIFA needs to do is so simple: Let America win one World Cup. Throw it in our favor, just once. Remember how US went gaga for women's soccer after we won the Women's World Cup? We started a whole league after the second win in 1999! And when that league folded, we made another league because we like bringing home trophies.

C'mon FIFA, we already know how corrupt you are! Let's be corrupt for the greater good of the sport! America winning the Cup = at least 25 years of us giving a shit about soccer.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:04 AM on March 2, 2016 [5 favorites]

So does anyone know if Larry Birdman succeeded in getting the Mittens rules changed?
posted by robocop is bleeding at 8:42 AM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

The only thing at all confusing about soccer is the offsides rule, and once you show people a few examples it's really not that hard to grasp. Otherwise, I don't think it's the rules that are the issue, it's (a) the US hasn't won the World Cup yet and (b) we don't like tie games (but we don't much like shootouts either).
posted by schoolgirl report at 9:35 AM on March 2, 2016

A pity, since changing rules to make games more entertaining always works.
posted by ckape at 10:13 AM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Rule-changes can breathe life into many moribund sports. The 3 point shot, anyone? The forward pass? Ok, so maybe the DH wasn't the greatest idea, but change can be good. Most American sports tweak their rules every year to keep balance and drama. Soccer's omnipresence might be a problem, as changes to the first 90 minutes are practically impossible to enact.
posted by Steakfrites at 11:36 AM on March 2, 2016

This is supposed to be simpler than regular soccer? In what way?

Yeah, I felt like the explanation of rules was straight from a comedy sketch ("unless it’s a full moon, then it 5 points"). I was laughing anyway.

I don’t understand what people find boring to watch about soccer, but I can’t fathom what people find interesting about football either, so…

The whole "change the game to make it more interesting for Americans" thing is always so funny and misguided. Americans are changing, and they’ll like the sport or not. The game doesn’t need to change.
posted by bongo_x at 11:39 AM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

could earn an extra half point if their player scored between the posts of the traditional-sized goal and a new, larger outer goal that was being proposed.

So it'd be like Aussie Rules, where you get a point for missing...
posted by pompomtom at 2:35 PM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Hey I'm starting to get the hang of this game! The blerns are loaded, the count's three blerns and two anti-blerns and the infield blern rule is in effect, right?
posted by ckape at 2:47 PM on March 2, 2016 [8 favorites]

I really want to see the exhibition games they played, if anything out of curiosity.
posted by gc at 7:41 PM on March 2, 2016

So it'd be like Aussie Rules, where you get a point for missing...

I did think the double goal was reminiscent of Aussie Rules, but my reading was that a League 1 behind was worth more than a regular goal, not less. "could earn an extra half point" sounds like 1.5 points, not 0.5.
posted by zamboni at 8:57 PM on March 2, 2016

MLS teams do varying degrees of OK in terms of attendance, but nothing approaching other sports.

I don't know about that. The MLS league average attendance per game in 2015 was more than 21,000 overall (with half the league's teams averaging over 20,000 per game), and that's over a 34 game season. I would also argue that—at the very least—Seattle, who averages ~44,000 attendance per game, is doing more than "OK".
posted by gumpstump at 10:42 PM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

a 21 thousand average would put the MLS just behind the English Prem (36), German Bundesliga (43), Spanish Liga (28) and roughly the same as French Ligue 1 (20), Italy Serie A (22), Netherlands Eredivisie (18) and the English and German second tier (17 and 18), via.

Sure, the markets are much larger, but in many places except maybe Portland, they're the third or fourth sports team, yet drawing attendances comparable to plenty of European teams. Porto yesterday had like 4500 in attendance for semi-final cup match (granted, the team is playing like shit, it was a midweek return leg after a 0-2 away win against a second tier opponent and tickets were relatively expensive, but still...)

Eurosport is broadcasting games here with some success. Some European stars in their 30s are going there, but unlike the NASL, instead of has-beens, players like Beckham, Pirlo, Lampard, Gerard, Villa, and probably soon, Ronaldo, would still find their way in plenty of top squads.

The future is looking good, as long as nobody pulls a Trump and destroys all work because of a pissing contest.
posted by lmfsilva at 11:33 PM on March 2, 2016

Hey I'm starting to get the hang of this game! The blerns are loaded, the count's three blerns and two anti-blerns and the infield blern rule is in effect, right?


I think that puts you in Knip, so my move is...

Mornington Crescent!
posted by MattWPBS at 6:28 AM on March 4, 2016

stannate: "The different colors of the uniforms reminds me of a similar uniform experiment that the WFL (World Football Leauge) attempted during its brief 1974-75 run."

Baseball tried this in the early days, as well.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:11 PM on March 4, 2016 [1 favorite]