Picking a winner

Soccer* is a lovely game, but it's not a very high-scoring one. It's pretty common for a game to finish in a draw, especially when it's a final and both sides are desperate not to lose. The usual extra time is often not enough, and then there is a penalty shoot-out.

Penalty shoot-outs are horrible things. They're quite artificial; there's nothing of the real beauty of soccer in them. No teamwork, no assessment of the movement of 22 people, none of the sleight of hand that a really delightful piece of soccer involves. There is a precision shot (if done well), a little bit of fakery (a penalty shot that goes where the keeper was standing a second ago is entertaining, if risky), but mostly it's a coin-flip. Did the keeper guess right?

In basketball, if you're good at the game, you'll be good at the overtime, and you'll win. In soccer, there's very little practice at taking penalties, except for shootouts. In a really good game of soccer, there's no call for it at all.

We need a different way. I've heard lots of people talk about the suggestion I'm about to make, and I've never heard anyone make anything like a good argument against it.

In extra time, we should take people off. Two immediately when extra time starts; two more at the changeover. Unlimited interchange of the original 11; you can also replace someone from the 11-man team if you have ordinary subs left, but that is a permanent change. Sendoffs remove someone from the 11. I think you'd need a rule like: 2-card red means you're off the 11 without replacement; straight red means you're off the 11 and so is someone else. There must be a serious disadvantage to taking out the opposition's star player.

That will focus on soccer skills. Double-teaming that brilliant forward now becomes a lot harder. If your team has the passing game, you can wear the opposition out or simply leave a couple of defenders behind. Every player becomes vital, and with no backups a breakaway is much more likely to get a goal. The interchange rule means that rested players will periodically come on and run the legs off tired defenders.

It won't guarantee a result; there is no guaranteeing a result. But it will reduce the chance of a penalty shootout, and that has to be a good thing.


* I grew up in a country where the name "football" was already taken, ironically enough by games whose players did not kick the ball nearly as much. Some people get upset when football is called "soccer", but it is completely unambiguous and it's the name I know it by. Get over it.

Tell me more

I am currently in the market for something Tivo-like; it's time to take advantage of chase play and HD signals dumping all my old tapes and all the rest of it. Time to move into the Century of the Fruitbat, as they say.

So I've been looking at all the competing brands. It's been a while since I shopped for serious AV gear (to the extent that I ever have... an audiophile would shake his or her head sadly at the sight).

After some experience with this, I find that the bar has been raised. I used to be OK with going to a shop and looking at the boxes, asking the salesman questions etc. Not any more. If you don't have a website with a downloadable manual for the thing that I can read at home and compare with all the others - you don't make the cut.

And it had better be a complete manual, too. If you've got a feature, tell me about it. If I have to reply on the salesman, I'm not going to hear it. Partly because I'm at home surfing instead of in a shop talking, and partly because when I do talk to a salesman there's a good chance I'll know more than s/he does. Judging by recent experience, the salesman may not even know that the store stocks your brand.

Don't lie in your manual, either. The web will find out, and they will not be gentle.

It's the information age, and I love it. But some companies have had trouble catching up.

Olympic sports

As usual while watching the Olympics, there are some sports I think should be tossed out:

• The walking; like a "world's tallest dwarf" competition, this one looks for the person who can jog while appearing to be walking. Slow-motion footage shows they're all cheating (technically), and who would actually try to get somewhere that way? If you're fit enough to go that fast, you'll run. Drop it, add a 20km running distance, and let them all join the real athletes
• Synchronized swimming. Who cares? It's a relic of old black and white musicals.
• Tennis and soccer. They have their own big events. Get someone in who will appreciate it.
• Archery. Don't get rid of it, just make them use a real bow instead of something that looks like it was stolen from a cell-phone tower.
• Dressage. "The Olympics are for everyone, not just someone who happens to own a dancing horse." (shamelessly stolen).
• Blah blah blah. You can get this stuff anywhere.

But then I had an epiphany: what's the problem? If people are happy to pay for these events, put 'em on. Add stair-climbing, or thumb-wrestling, or whatever. No, the decision that needs to be made here is, what are the Olympics about?

Are they about the canonical sports? The events that everyone should think about learning? Running, jumping, swimming, throwing, cycling; short distances and long. On this view, horse riding would once have been there, but no longer (dressage never would have, but whatever). Rowing is dubious. Soccer makes it in. High diving does not. Archery and fencing are gone, and shooting replaces them. Synchronized swimming should never have been invented, much less competed in; get those people into the gymnastics.

Or are they about all the sports? Should we just draw a line and say "this many registered players, and you're in"? Maybe so. If I don't like the dressage, I can just change channels (or even better, go outside and do something productive) ; next Olympics I'll probably be able to choose my own sports to watch. Even now, Tivo will let me fast-forward stuff I'm bored by.

I have a theory about sport: if we ever manage to perfect the world, it and the weather will be the only reason to have newspapers. Imagine the rest: business - Dow Jones up .01% for 374,023rd day running. Politics: government services still running smoothly. Crime: 386,000th day without crime. Sport: football, baseball, athletics, cricket, you name it.

So I'm gonna go with "get 'em all in". And next time I see an Olympic sport that bores me to tears, I'll leave you all to watch it in peace. As long as you leave me to read in peace.