There is a bigger chance we beat bayern than Zagreb beating Olympiacos

meh i'm betting small amount on arsenal

The status quo is fine. Part of living in society includes not only having explicit rules but implicit rules as well. This applies to football as well. If you apply the law literally then the actual results are much worse. You need to have some flexibility. Stating otherwise is just lol poker players with asperger.

I think that's only true if you believe that the purpose of calling fouls is to right the wrongs committed on the pitch. That sounds fine on the surface but it's not the whole story.

The ref's main job is simply to keep the game from getting out of control, and calling fouls is the only meaningful tool he has to do that. If the game is getting rougher than he wants it to be and there's a rough looking tackle at midfield, he might call it whether he knows it's a foul or not just because it's a good opportunity to dump cold water on a guy like Can who's been running around like a headless chicken. It's the same logic behind giving someone a yellow even if the straw that broke the camel's back was arguably not worthy. The ref needs to make the guy chill. Which actual fouls he gets right or wrong isn't as important to him in the part of the field where a free kick isn't very critical.

His thinking is totally different the closer we get to the box and the goal. Now he's much less focused on deterrence and control, and much more focused on doing actual justice. If Alexis cuts inside and gets taken down a few feet outside the box with an illegal tackle, the ref wants to return to Arsenal the scoring chance that was improperly taken away. Conversely, he doesn't want to create a chance where there wasn't one, and deny the opponent a counterattack if the tackle was clean. He's much more interested in every little detail, and much less interested in the general narrative the way he is in the middle of the park.

Perfectly valid point of view, but that begs the question: should we make those implicit rules explicit so that everyone is on the same page? The purpose of rules is so people know how to behave. If we don't go by the book then we're all subject to each ref's individual sense of what those implicit rules are.

Dean if I understand correctly you're suggesting we write in the book that people can act unaccordingly to what is written in the book?

You can't openly admit the implicit rules. That's the whole point.

Rule number 23: penalties should not be awarded as easily as fouls in other parts of the pitch because otherwise we would have 5 penalties per game and it would ruin the game.

See? You can't write that **** down. The refs, the players and the fans need to figure out by themselves. You may not like it but that is how human beings work.

No, you would have much less fouling in the penalty area.

It's like shirt pulling, if they start giving pens for every shirt pull. After 1 game we'd get 5-6 pens then it'd stop.

There is a reason why the refs have adapted throughout the years to give less fouls in the penalty box.

Source?

I didn't remember it this way so I took a quick look...

I was just skimming and quoting, I'm sure are there some non-LFC fans in there and I'm sure I missed some. I'll let you be the judge of whether that looks especially boomy to you. Personally I think you're seeing what you want to see at this point.

Because nobody wants to be the man to award five penalties in a game? Footballers might be dim, but if what they are doing results in several penalties per game, they will soon adapt.

Well we know that the refs are much more lenient when giving fouls in the area over other areas of the pitch.

So they either have given less penalties through the years because they realized not being more lenient in the area is ******ed. Or a second option is that they were more lenient right away when penalties were first awarded back in 1890ish. Either way I trust their judgement.

This is not so hard.

You cant be as strict in the penalty area as elsewhere because the cost of giving a penalty is much higher than some random foul in the middle.
You cant be explicit and say that fouls in the penalty area will be given only if the ref is 100% sure because then defenders would make even more fouls.

This is how social life works in general.

And why dont they want to give the 5 penalties? Because they would look ******ed. And rightly so.

what's wrong with that? You want do discourage fouling in the box

I'm really enjoying watching Hector play. The ground he made up on (an admittedly dithering) Gomis in the first half, then launching himself into the post to block one off the line were both awesome, but he just adds so much all around.

First, I'm just asking questions. I'm not sure what the best idea is.

That said, one thing I suggested was to simply write in the book what you actually want done. If you want refs to only give a second yellow for a cynical foul or dangerous play, just say that that's what a second yellow is for in the rule book.

If you think it's fine, you wouldn't change anything.

You wouldn't write it like that, but of course you can make certain qualifications.

If referee reluctance to give a penalty or a second yellow is something you want there's nothing wrong with saying so. It doesn't have to be written in black and white, and then the refs get taken aside and told, "wink, wink, but you know what to do." Look at the law. A higher standard is required to send someone to jail for vehicular manslaughter than is required to make the driver compensate the victim's family. There's nothing wrong with saying: "We want you to be REALLY sure before you send this guy off or award a penalty. If you think it's more likely than not that a foul occurred in the normal run of play, go ahead and call it. But for game-changing calls the standard is higher"

If you think player A fouled played B but you are not quite sure if its a foul or not, dont you think its reasonable to give that foul in the middle of the pitch but not in the area?

They would look ******ed, but when it happens week after week of the rules being applied correctly, the only people that look ******ed are the players.

Yes there is. It would result in MORE fouls in the penalty area. Leave like it is imo.

Your law example is good but in that case its better to have it explicit because criminals mindframe is completely different than the mindframe of a defender in a football game.

No, refs were way more lenient back in the day, players use to get chopped and nothing would be given. You literally use to do man to man marking on their best player with a player whose sole job is to kick the **** out of him.

nah. Sure, the defensive player will give up more by being whistled for a foul there, but that's why you're more cautious in the box. And he also stands to win more by fouling and getting away with it.

Do you mean in general or when giving penalties?