Allowing guys to come in and out and back in, like FB or BBall?

able to use your entire roster throughout a game, keep the entire team involved and invested, resting players for a while and then bringing them back in, or any of the various strategic reasons you might swap some players temporarily with different skillsets.

That's just always my automatic instict about what I think I want to see...but I'm also trying to better understand the reasons why it's a bad idea in soccer, which I'm sure are strong.

And I'm not interested in changing that aspect.

<--- Big Baller World Order

If you think that's a good idea, just stick to the sports that do that.

WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE

played and watched soccer his whole life the best explaination i can give you is


soccer is about as old fashioned and resistant to change as baseball

i always see alot of parallels between the two which is why im glad to see both starting to accept instant replay

but i digress


the biggest thing about soccer is endurance and its as simple as that

with having to play a full 90 minutes or not being able to come back on after being subbed, your endurance and more importantly, being able to play at a high level while being completely spent is hugely important

if it were more like rec ball(most youth and recreational soccer you can sub as much as you want) the emphasis on fitness and coaching tactics needed to to deal with a limited number of subs just wouldnt be as important

now is that necessarily "better" than having unlimited subs? would it be more exciting? well thats where the resistance to change comes in

it could be but then it wouldnt be "soccer" as the world knows it
and they arent hurting for popularity or anything so theres no actual reason to change

That was a really good reply, thanks. So i take it that endurance is apparently a really important factor in what ppl love about soccer...softening the endurance-test from the game would dull a key reason for soccer's appeal. Seeing more of the players get involved, seeing great players with low endurance at their best late in games just is generally seen as not as exciting as watching the drama of guys wearing down and gutting it out...is that kinda right?

it would be a fundamentally different game from a tactics standpoint otherwise

im not sure if objectively it would be better or worse

but if i were a coach id probably load up on defenders and defensive midfielders and just continually rotate them out so the other teams "star" players tire out


now there are players that are famous for being last second heroes OLE GUNNAR SOLSKAJAER STAND UP!

but typically those roles are reserved for less fit players like older players or guys coming back from injury

if you get 4 guys with a yellow in the first half, at least one of them is going to have to play the whole second half with ejection looming

unlimited subbing bails them out for sloppy/dangerous play

WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE

that makes perfect sense

without screwing themselves over, subs and all

a soccer player with 2 yellows leaves his team a man down for the rest of the game

WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE

or two.

Especially for matches that go to extra time.

plus, would make teams more tempted to do what the netherlands (was it them? I think it was them) did and have a penalty shot specialist goalkeeper which was really fun.
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you think we playing chess, but i'm playing mad-making. Basaglia

Try watching a college game, which has unlimited subs, and see how sterile it is. Becomes all about quick, dynamic moves forward and zero tactical buildup play.

I thought there would be plenty of other factors and dimensions at play on a soccer pitch.

The best teams are the ones that can find ways to control where the ball goes and exploit space. It's a lot easier to do that when you're fresh.

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"This (and every, actually) conversation needs more Chesterton and less Mike Francesa." - Walleye

have enough elements within that to strategize over...maybe even moreso if fatigue played a smaller role...in my head...because if your players can just run around longer than theirs, how much additional strategy is required really?

But also, choosing when to sit your best players to preserve them for later is also a fatigue-inspired strategic dimension right?

Limiting subs requires teams to effectively declare a strategy at the beginning of the game via their lineup. The unexpected result of allowing teams to have enough subs that they don't have to declare that strategy is to end up with only one decent strategy for all teams (out-athlete the other team).

take the fatigue factor out of soccer, and the space and control that a team like barca (regularly with 60+% of possession) relies on isn't really useful and the only real way to win is pure athleticism and winning one on ones. that's what's sterile. it reduces the number of strategic options because the team with 23 fast athletes would always win over the team playing a possession strategy.

as others have pointed out, it also messes up the value of cards--so what? get a yellow card, get subbed, nbd. whereas get a card and have to play 70 more minutes w/ that card? difficult. and it makes the choice of subs later in the game less meaningful.

there could be tweaks--emergency 4th subs for an injury (that then requires the injury player miss the next game or something so faking it isn't worth it) or additional sub for extra time--but the game is built around an expectation that athletes be both endurance based and sprinting based.

baseball players standing around the outfield or sitting on the bench waiting to bat; nfl players stop after every play or rotate players in an out; basketball and hockey rotations. soccer has it's own ways of breaking up the action to give players a bit of a rest. but for the most part, they will be on the field the entire game. unlimited subs (esp at an elite level) would certainly change the complexion of the game.

and even baseball, while not having limitations, per se, doesn't let you take a player out of the lineup and then put them back in. you could pinch run with your fastest player and then sub him back out for a strong defender in the field, and then sub in a strong hitter when it's time to bat. or change your pitcher every inning depending on the section of the lineup being faced.

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"I can't promise I'll try. But I'll try to try."

and the rest of world football would grow ever more stark.

Think about the number of players that Chelsea has "wasted" having by not being able to give regular gameplay to. Or the number of lower-league teams that have been given lifelines by being able to loan in players that are blocked from those larger teams' academies by the big money signings. If you have a "rolling 23" that goes away. Think of Man City being able to roll out midfield lines like a hockey team. Going from having to defend Gundogan/Delph/Sane to Silva/Fernandinho/Sterling in, say, 15-minute increments would crush teams.

Or imagine this happens during Beckham's LA Galaxy run. teams would be drafting him in on rolling year contracts to come in just for corners and free kicks. And while that's cool, the imbalance of other teams not being able to field a set-piece specialist either due to needing midfield horses to compete or not being able to afford one would deepen that rift even more.

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"This (and every, actually) conversation needs more Chesterton and less Mike Francesa." - Walleye

why make such a huge change to a sport that would require salary caps (plus, it'd also be about academy salaries, so no, it's not that easy) and change the tenor of the game?
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you think we playing chess, but i'm playing mad-making. Basaglia

Player contracts operate largely the same way they did in baseball prior to Curt Flood- they're owned by the team and "sold" to other teams rather than traded. Players rarely run down their contracts to the end before being sold to another club-- or if they do, it's because they're planning to a) retire or b) get out of a mutually poisonous situation. And in that case, they're usually free to negotiate with other clubs six months before their contracts expire.

The closest thing to a salary cap right now (that isn't MLS's "squad cap plus superstars") is UEFA's Financial Fair Play rules-- and even those operate more like a luxury tax-style "cap" where you can't spend more (on transfers and wages) than a certain percentage of your income, which is of course easily exploitable by certain type of owners who can make all sorts of "donations" via non profits, or super favorable commercial agreements with partner companies.

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"This (and every, actually) conversation needs more Chesterton and less Mike Francesa." - Walleye

on planet earth. "salary cap"...dude...

And many salary cap rules would fall afoul of international treaties like the European Commission.

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"This (and every, actually) conversation needs more Chesterton and less Mike Francesa." - Walleye

The game becomes far too physical when fouls don't matter or you can just gas yourself 10 minutes at a time. And everything devolves to dump and chase, where fresh attackers just try and run past offside traps on long balls. It is really horrible. The culture and history of the game is built around the idea of having your best 11 players on the field until they can't be on the field or something needs to be changed. Training, squad building, formation strategies, approaches to offensive and defensive decisions, that's all dictated by the idea of "who are the best 11 I can choose to do this for the longest amount of time'? If a manager can just chop and change on the fly from a bench of even just 6 or 7 additional players, let alone the insane bench allowed in international play, skill and strategy is discounted massively.


Now, I will concede that they need to figure out how to handle concussions to be properly diagnosed and not penalize a team that has to take a player off with one (thereby not encouraging teams to do what they often do now, let players that don't know where they are to wander back out there). It took FIFA nearly two decades to figure out VAR, so we are likely a ways off on that sort of change.

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Current Favorite Song: https://youtu.be/8v_KFHnPImY

"I cannot see how nature could have created itself. Only a supernatural force that is outside of space and time could have done that. ~ Francis Collins

It isn't quite free substitution but you can leave and re-enter a game; the rules are limited. You'd think all those fresh legs would up the tempo and get guys going balls out more, but it doesn't really have that effect. To me it makes the game a lot choppier in terms of both flow and tactics.

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