World Cup 2014 – Dugout Discussion – Matchday 7, Day 2

Lobbed the heading off: Observations from the World Cup - fantasy and non-fantasy

I agree with all this except I didn't really care about 4.

No offside? Then I would imagine 10 attackers will crowd the goal area wait for the long ball from their goalie.

I think this is the reason why the offside rule was created.

I'm fully with you on point 3. Coming from a rugby country seeing footballers falling over crying all the time is an absolute disgrace. Something needs to be done otherwise countries like ours and the USA will never take football seriously and it will only ever be a joke sport for pansies.

some thought on number 4. I've been browsing this site for about 4 years now. In this period it has become richer in the way that they have a bigger variety of articles. But also poorer in the way that it has become more of a sponsered site driven by comercial interests. Playon betting articles, promoting fantasy games with a pay-to-win struckture. During this WC this site has been bad mouthing and talking down the McD game, I assume since they are sponsored by other fantasy games. The McD game is perfect for a competition like the WC. Lets you have a big squad and play with your 11 actively. Sure there GUI was not great in the beginning, but those of us that actually just learned how to use it instead of joining the whining choir had a great time. Just one small article from the scouts could have cleared out all uncertainties about how to change your formation during the first round i.e.

anyway, its been a great WC, both the McDs game and the football itself.

cheers

On point 4, there were Scout Notes on a daily basis which included an element of player performance in the main fantasy games, I admit these were relatively thin on content but given that there have also been numerous articles being churned out on fixture/rotation analysis, new players, etc. which have to be fitted in somewhere this was probably as much as could be expected.

Apart from anything else I imagine Paul et al value a brief rest now and again! 🙂

They should allow forward passes in rugby too like they do in American football. No wait American sports are rubbish 😉

The difference with hockey is that the pitch is smaller, aerials are harder, you cant flick it towards players, and when the person controls the aerial, the person has to be 5 yards away.

No offside in football would mean team would have to defend with mire players to cover the space, so it would be more defensive.

I agree with 3 & 5.

4 - as said, Paul needs a rest! And he did do daily notes.

Are you being serious about offside? Have you ever watched children play?

Removing offside is the worst idea ever. The primary result would be the end of the high defence line.

All the teams playing attacking football these days play with a high defence line, but removing offside would make this impossible, because keeping defence line high would not take space away from opponent. Without offside rule, all teams would be practically forced to sit deep in defence and that would be the end of attacking football. It would lead to all teams parking the bus, fouling on midfield, and focusing on set pieces.

Another thing is that offside rule is essential to one of the main tactical elements that define football, because it allows teams to affect how much opponent has space to play in. How much of the field is playable for them at each moment. This aspect would be lost with offside.

In both ways, removing offside would make football stupid and remove some of things that distinguish it from other, lesser sports.

1-2. I think they should keep offside, but it might be easier for officials to make the correct calls if players were not allowed to blatantly stand in offside positions when waiting for free-kicks. It is very difficult for the officials to get it right when a number of players are moving between offside and onside positions and they don't know which of them are going to touch the ball or interfere with play.

3. I find it extremely annoying the way that players stop play when another player is feigning injury, before the ball is returned to the other side but in less favourable circumstances. Except in extreme cases (if a player is seriously injured and the ref has not spotted it, which should be rare) players should only stop play if the ref tells them to. If the ref does not stop play, then it is up to the side whose player is injured to put the ball out of play if they wish, but they should not expect the ball to be returned to them in that case.

4. The Scouts have been spreading their coverage more thinly than I would like over a number of games. I would also prefer it if they gave greater in-depth analysis of the most popular one, which in this case is the McD's one, but number of members of the FFS community have made valuable contributions towards filling the gap.
The main purpose of the site is to cover FPL throughout the Premier League season, which they do very well, so perhaps we should really just count anything on other games as a Summer bonus.

5. Why did MCd's have to start from scratch again? Couldn't they just have adapted the 2010 World Cup game, which was much better?

6. Another thing that annoys me is the time that players take to get off the pitch in late substitutions. Why can't the ref just stop his watch until play is ready to resume?