Kicking Heads

While I'm watching the Eurozone crawl towards its grave, I am happy that the games at the Euros are pretty good so far. NBA is not going well with Thunder losing. I hoped the young guns win but whatever.

I am disappointed that Russia is knocked out instead of Greece but the truth is, Russia did lose to Greece. The thing is, the way the commentators rant about the rule confused me. If you piece everything together, head-to-head truly only affects 2-team scenarios. Notice that the soccernet.com scenarios pretty much sound like goal difference than the mathematical juggernaut they are talking about. Anything more than 2 teams on the same points, its pretty much down to goal difference.

Personally, I want goal difference just to simplify stuff and I think goal difference makes teams want to attack. Then again, there is always Italy and Greece. Also, Greeks should remember, 2004 is held using goal difference. Plus, what if Greece is made to attack? Doesn't that sound fun? They are croaked against Russia because of the rules. They got screwed not picking up Chiotis and used that crappy GK instead of the good one they have now for 1.5 games.

The other thing that weird me out is goal line technology. Most time, I think Platini is doing a good job but goal line tech can be negotiated. I understand the difficulty in implementing it, but as Ballack mentioned, the difficulty is really when to stop the game to check it and not affect the flow.

Here's my thought. How many times is the game stopped? If you think about it, it's actually quite frequent! Fouls, throw-ins, corners, goal kicks and of course goals. The flow of the game is important, hence, why can't we check the bloody camera at the next available stoppage? Why not make the check during major stops and not fouls, such as a corner?

If it is proven to be a goal, just add one goal to the scores and roll on the next scenarios:

• if the scoring team is attacking or if the ball is not in the scoring team's half, the game will restart from the halfway line per normal goal
• if the scoring team is defending or concedes a goal, the game will continue from where it is stopped

This way, the flow doesn't stop and we can stop the mistakes by human eye. Now, where should the cameras be placed? Simple, right on the back of the goalposts. We only need to confirm if the ball went over the line. We know enough of parallax or whatever vision related errors we might have so quite simply, we can stop this error without ruining the game. 

Also, this puts onus on the scoring team to still maintain their defense. They shouldn't commit fouls to stop the game and still defend, trying to get a goal kick or corner, or worst case scenario, at the halfway line after they conceded a goal on the counter. The onus on the team that "could have gotten away" is to counter and score, or at least get close to it. If they can't, they are not "winning" anyway.

Either way, it can be done, and Platini should just stop thinking about keeping to tradition. We changed the points system to a 3 point win system to promote attacking plays. Putting goal line technology will not disrupt the game if we know when to put in the checks.

And I rest my case. I have a road trip tomorrow!