SPA favours anti-football. Discuss
- Thread starter bloovee
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Funny enough we had a county FA training meet last night where we had a similar discussion..
(I think) we all unanimously agree that SPA challenges are anti-football and I think, it has been said on here before, some folks would like to see it outlawed with a more serious sanction.
Interestingly I think making it a more serious sanction would make your theory worse.
I don't think they SPA encourages the tactics though. From a footballing point of view, whether SPA was a thing or not the teams that setup in that way would do so anyway. They don't do it to get the opposition cautioned they do it so they don't get torn apart by better footballing sides. Some teams are better counter attackers and some teams are better with possession. I don't think SPA drives those tactics.
It's a strange concept, remove the punishment it will happen more. Increasing the punishment might make counter attacking style with deep defensive lines more prevalent.
(I think) we all unanimously agree that SPA challenges are anti-football and I think, it has been said on here before, some folks would like to see it outlawed with a more serious sanction.
Interestingly I think making it a more serious sanction would make your theory worse.
I don't think they SPA encourages the tactics though. From a footballing point of view, whether SPA was a thing or not the teams that setup in that way would do so anyway. They don't do it to get the opposition cautioned they do it so they don't get torn apart by better footballing sides. Some teams are better counter attackers and some teams are better with possession. I don't think SPA drives those tactics.
It's a strange concept, remove the punishment it will happen more. Increasing the punishment might make counter attacking style with deep defensive lines more prevalent.
What on earth could be inspiring this musing I wonder?
This actually...
Bukayo Saka is more sinned against than sinning, so why the yellow card imbalance?
Arsenal team-mates believe the winger is being targeted by opponents and is not being given adequate protection by referees
www.telegraph.co.uk
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SPA currently covers both an accidentally mistimed tackle that happens to be in the 'wrong' part of the field (from the offender's perspective) and a blatant pull back of a player with no intention to do anything other than stop an attack - as well as many offences somewhere between the two. Sin bin would be a blunt instrument I feel
then distinguish the two? we already do it for dogso and spa in the box
did the player make a genuine attempt for the ball?
Yes - yellow
no - yellow + sin bin
Sin bins in their current form aren't fit for purpose, as discussed here. And part of that is down to the fact some players still think we are "choosing" to send them to the sin bin for dissent, which makes the whole situation more confusing and antagonistic.
And with that in mind, it baffles me that any referee would argue for adding an offence where the referee does actually have to choose if it qualifies for a sin bin or not! James is right in that a more serious sanction will inevitably be applied less - and in this proposed situation, we're maintaining the "cop-out" option as well.
Which means in reality, we're making the laws more complex and more difficult to understand and 99.9% of the time, referees will just apply the lesser punishment anyway. Because it's a subjective decision and taking the harsher option is worse for almost everyone involved, including the referee!
I have no problem with "taking a yellow". It's part of the game and the cost is established. There's no reason to tinker with this unless you have ulterior motives.
And with that in mind, it baffles me that any referee would argue for adding an offence where the referee does actually have to choose if it qualifies for a sin bin or not! James is right in that a more serious sanction will inevitably be applied less - and in this proposed situation, we're maintaining the "cop-out" option as well.
Which means in reality, we're making the laws more complex and more difficult to understand and 99.9% of the time, referees will just apply the lesser punishment anyway. Because it's a subjective decision and taking the harsher option is worse for almost everyone involved, including the referee!
I have no problem with "taking a yellow". It's part of the game and the cost is established. There's no reason to tinker with this unless you have ulterior motives.
But it was in the explanation for the change and was bandied about an awful lot when I came in.
yep, a fair point
it needs to come down to referee judgement IMO, i don't think it can be 100% defined in words in law
did the player commit an offence which could be fall under SPA while making a 'normal' football challenge for the ball or position? if yes, i wouldn't expect a sin bin
did the player make a cynical attempt to stop a promising attack? if yes, i would expect a sin bin
now what do i mean by cynical...i think these fall into 2 categories:
- blatant holding or pushing offences where the ball is not within legitimate playing reach/distance
- intentional trips or fouls where no obvious attempt to play the ball has been made
1. player beats his man with skill to break into the box, defender clumsily brings him down with a careless trip as he's too slow to get the ball. this was clear as day SPA but a totally genuine attempt to play the ball so i wouldn't expect a sin bin
2. i don't know the exact context behind this but...luke o nien of Sunderland literally jumps on the back of his opponent to stop a promising attack in midfield to 'take one for the team'. i would expect a yellow car for this
clear as mud?
yep, you'd definitely be making the law more complex, harder to understand and implement consistently with my suggestion and get your point about refs taking the more lenient option
but still dont think that's enough to stop this being a good idea that should be trialled/implemented
Yep. Don't disagree. My comment is based on
(i) it's not in the LOTG wording - 'an attempt to play the ball' is not qualified & I can point anyone questioning it to the very phrase
(ii) Practically, genuine is a word I avoid with players & coaches. 'Was it an attempt to play the ball ?' doesn't close down 100% of discussions, but it's easier without a rider, which too easily becomes about how good the attempt was
If you fix sin bins to work more logically and be better understood, and very clearly differentiate the two offences so that it's really hard to justify choosing the "wrong" one, I think you could maybe get to a point where it's possible for this to be more complex to a practical degree, rather than the completely impractical change it would be to just throw it in now.
I still don't think there's any need for it.
Who gets to define what is football and what is anti-football? It reeks of a few years ago when Australia spent half their time telling everyone what the spirit of cricket is and the other half of the time working out how to sneakily manufacture sandpaper on the field!
Have to say I totally agree with you, but I also don't think we should be picking people up when they do use the word genuine, it's not like they have invented it themselves, nor can you say it is wrong as it did appear in the explanation for the change
It's my biggest gripe with the laws / explanation for change section. Because the law can actually completely change with or without the explanation.
I actually had IFAB quote an explanation for a change that is no longer in law which I had to point out the fact that a new referee (any normal non saddo ref like me who has all the PDFs back to2016 even) is unlikely to have that info or be aware of it and so the law actually means something different now!
i'm just one of the sports stakeholders and it is those people (fans/players/refs/coaches etc.) who should help define what football should look like
id there a 'need' for it? of course not. was there a need to re-define dogso or even the 'backpass' laws? of course not, but they were done to improve the game
That doesn't seem to bother IFAB, since the laws have become more complex and more difficult to understand - in an attempt to make them clearer!
Agreed, but you can't ignore that the intent to simplify was there even if it didn't work out that way. Whereas with this proposed change there's no claim that it makes anything clearer - rather, everyone arguing for it is accepting inevitable increased complexity for the sake of what they see as a "better" game.
Which means we can't ignore inherent biases in what different people think of as improving the game. Is taking a yellow to stop a promising attack smart football or awful anti-football? I suspect the answer to that question correlates pretty closely to which team you support!
I think it was rather whether park the bus teams get away with more fouls before cards come out because it's always a less "promising" attack than their occasional breakaway being stopped. And that's not counting as fouls the fouls that don't get a FK awarded because the team was given an "advantage" just because they kept the ball. So it rewards negative play.
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I would like to see SPA expanded so it was easier to YC cynical careless fouls with no attempt to play the ball further away from goal.