We should make three changes to the rules of professional soccer: slightly increase the size of the goals, conduct the penalty kick shootout at the beginning of the game, and change the offside rules to be similar to hockey. These changes would increase scoring and make soccer more entertaining while eliminating a major source of errors by referees.

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Soccer is a fun game to play, and youth soccer is fun to coach and watch. But professional soccer is, well, boring. Sad, but true. It’s just boring. The reason is simple—there just isn’t enough scoring. While there are occasionally 5-4 games that have a lot of excitement, there are also lots of 1-0 snoozers. And at the highest level, like the final rounds of the World Cup, there are often 0-0 games that go into extra time and then are decided by penalty kicks after 120 minutes. That’s a lot of soccer to watch without seeing a single goal. While there are other beautiful aspects of “the beautiful game,” goals add excitement—and are also an important part of determining which team wins! If there were more scoring, I would watch a lot more soccer and enjoy it more, and I expect I’m not alone.

Scoring is also reduced by the frequent willingness of teams to play for a draw as they get to the final minutes of a game that is tied. In such situations, teams won’t dare to take risks and try to score if it opens them up to a counter-attack, and it’s safer to play for the draw and let the game be decided by penalty kicks. In some cases, particularly at very high levels of competition, teams basically play for a draw from the beginning, and focus on making their defense rock-solid while investing little in attacking. This may be good strategy to avoid losing games, but it further reduces scoring as well as entertainment value for fans.  

Another unfortunate aspect of competition at all levels is the difficulty of making accurate calls for offside, which is critical to the game and often is the difference between victory and defeat–especially when there is so little scoring. While there’s always an element of chance in determining the outcomes of sporting events, it’s unfortunate that erroneous decisions by referees play such a prominent role in soccer at all levels. Even expert referees at the international level often  make erroneous offside calls, and this obviously occurs even more frequently at lower levels. Side referees must move up and down the field roughly in parallel with the ball in order to be in position to make an accurate call, since it is based on where offensive players are compared with defensive players and the ball at the moment the ball is kicked. In addition, the current offside rule leads to a complex series of defensive maneuvers and tricks that frankly have nothing to do with effective soccer—offside traps are simply designed to prevent offensive players from advancing, and this inhibits the free movement of offensive players, which leads to less scoring.

Fortunately these challenges could be overcome with a few targeted rule changes: increasing the size of the goals slightly, conducting the penalty kick shootout at the beginning of every game, and modifying the offside rule to be the same as hockey.

First change: increase the size of the goals slightly.

In youth soccer there is abundant scoring, in part because the portion of the goal that is effectively covered by the goalie is well below 100%. At the professional level this is not the case. One implication is less scoring overall in professional soccer because goalies are able to block most shots. But another impact is that attacking players rarely shoot from long distance because the likelihood of scoring on such a shot is so low. This effectively condenses the game in front of the net, enabling defenses to pack the area tightly, which makes the game less open and flowing. Expanding the goals by two feet in all three directions (moving out both sides and raising the crossbar) would lead to more goals, and also increase the likelihood of scoring on long strikes. If attackers could score more effectively from longer range, defenses would need to stretch out to counteract this threat, and this would make the action in front of the goal more dynamic. The goals would only need to be enlarged at the adult level—goals for youth games are sufficiently large and would not need to be expanded. There is precedent for varying goal sizes in youth soccer, where they increase at each level (under-6, under-8, under-10, etc.). Continuing this at the adult level would be feasible and effective.

Second change: conduct the penalty kick shootout at the beginning of every game.

Currently professional games are played for 90 minutes (plus injury time). If the game is tied at this point, the teams play two 15-minute overtime periods. If the game is still tied, the teams do a penalty kick shootout: each team gets to shoot five penalty shots, and the team that scores more goals wins. With this rule structure, teams often play conservatively toward the ends of games, content to settle for a shootout and unwilling to risk attacking.

The proposed change: conduct the shootout first, before the game starts. This would determine the winner in case of a tie. Knowing this information at the beginning would dramatically alter the dynamic of the game, as one team would have a strong incentive to score and prevent a tie since they would know that they would lose if the game was drawn. This is similar to the dynamic in qualification rounds when teams know whether they can advance with a tie or require a win, and also in situations where teams need to score in order to qualify to move on to the next round of competition based on goal differential. This kind of clarity and the inequality in status immediately injects tension into the game, and in the waning moments of these kinds of games a feeling of desperate urgency fuels exciting risk-taking that is absent from games where teams are resigned to letting the draw get settled in the shootout. Having the shootout first would change this dynamic.

Third change:  make the offside rule the same as hockey.

Both hockey and soccer are enhanced by offside rules that prevent “cherry picking” by offensive players—attackers waiting next to the opposing goal and scoring opportunistically if the ball comes to their end. However, the hockey offside rule is easier to enforce and enables much more dynamic and exciting offense.

Hockey offside rules are based on the blue line—a specific line on the ice that defines the beginning of the offensive zone. Offensive players can’t go into the offensive end of the rink until the puck has done so. However, once the puck has entered the zone, offensive players can go anywhere, regardless of where the defenders are, and can move freely until the puck goes back across the line (until it is “sent out of the zone” by the defense). At this point all offensive players must exit the zone until they’re able to send the puck back over the line towards the goal again. So in order for an offensive attack to be launched, the offense must get the puck into the offensive end, and no offensive player can enter the offensive zone ahead of the puck. In order to end the attack, the defense must get the puck out. This is straightforward and based on offense and defense, not based on trickery like “offside traps” executed by soccer defenders to catch attackers in an offside position. And it’s easier for the referee to call it accurately, since it’s always at the same point on the ice and the referee only needs to watch the puck and the offensive player (not the ball, the offensive player, and the defensive players at the same time, as is the case with soccer). There’s also a line on the ice, which simply makes it easier for referees—and the players—to see whether the puck entered the zone first.

This rule could easily be applied in soccer, and would lead to a similar offensive dynamic as is seen in hockey, with a much more flowing offensive attacking style and many more possibilities for scoring. This change in rules would also lead to more accurate calls by referees.

With these three changes—slightly larger goals, shootouts in advance, and modified offside rules—soccer would have more dynamic offensive play, better spacing leading to offensive potential, and more scoring. And this would make the beautiful game even more exciting for all of us.