Salary caps to shootouts: how US soccer could transform the game

SOccer in the US has continually experimented over the years, trying to find a balance between the game being experienced around the world and offering a uniquely Americanized product to domestic audiences, with rules that align with those of the major sports competitions of the country.

Some changes were revolutionary and stuck – for example, a rudimentary form of the backpass rule was an innovation of the North American Soccer League in the 1980s, long before it was adopted throughout the game in 1992; the same goes for the use of substitutes, which the American Soccer League pioneered in the 1920s, more than thirty years before the idea was codified into the Laws of the Game internationally.

Others are better forgotten. It was a two-point goal. There were ejections due to persistent pollution. There was even an attempt (who came up with this doozy?) to use corner kicks to decide the tie.

But there have been a handful of innovations in the United States that have either faded away or been limited to American soccer. While we’re not saying any of the following should be introduced in the Premier League tomorrow, they could work in a modified form in some places outside the US.

‘American’ punishments

Introduced in 1981 in an attempt to revive the flagship NASL, hockey-style penalty kicks were considered a more entertaining method of settling ties and a greater test of a player’s skill than a traditional spot kick.

The firefights alone could not save the NASL. The competition that once shone with stars such as Franz Beckenbauer, Johan Cruijff and Pelé was dissolved three years later. But when the MLS was founded in 1996, this unique approach to deciding games was retained and used to settle any match that ended in all squares – no draws allowed.

Although this alternative to penalties was unusual for non-Americans, the rules were simple: from 35 yards from the goal, the attacking player had five seconds to beat the goalkeeper in a one-on-one confrontation. The attacker could choose to shoot from distance, bring the ball closer to the goal before striking or attempt to dribble around the goalkeeper, and if the goalkeeper made a mistake in doing so, a regular penalty kick was awarded.

It was fun, it was different and it was undoubtedly a greater test of skill than an unopposed shot from the spot. Handling draws in league matches is a non-starter. But could the one-on-one shootout work better than penalties in knockout matches? Some believe so.

“I liked the shootout,” former USMNT coach Bruce Arena told Goal in 2020. “And you know, it took a lot of talent, the shootout, and there were some remarkable goals and exciting times in the shootout, so I thought that was fantastic.

“I would actually prefer extra time in all competitions around the world and the teams playing out the 30 minute extra time and it still being level. I would like to see a shootout instead of penalties.”

Christian Pulisic agrees. “I think instead of penalties they should do the old dribble from 30 yards or whatever and go one-on-one at the goalkeeper,” Pulisic said on Tim Ream’s Indirect podcast last year.

However, it is not just Americans who support the system. In 2017, legendary Dutch forward Marco van Basten advocated for MLS-style shootouts to be adopted in knockout play around the world, one of the few rule changes – including the abolition of offside – he pitched to FIFA when he won the took on the role of technical director. .

“This is spectacular for the viewers and interesting for the player,” Van Basten said in a response interview with Bild. “With this idea, (the player) has more options: he can dribble, shoot, wait and the goalkeeper reacts. This looks more like a typical playing situation.”

Discontinuous clock

In the interregnum between the 1994 World Cup and the inauguration of the MLS two years later, the United States International Soccer League (USISL) – a sprawling, inter-regional league – was used as a live test case for a series of proposed rule changes.

Larger goals to encourage higher-scoring games and penalty shots for cumulative team fouls were among the more left-field adjustments to the rules of the game tried in the USISL. One that made more sense was the use of a discontinuous game clock.

The competition’s regulators noted that the average time the ball was in play during matches at the 1990 World Cup in Italy was 58 minutes. They determined that, instead of having the referee stop his watch every time the ball went out of play and add the time to be added to the end of each match, a discontinuous 60-minute game clock would be used. Because the matches were split into 30-minute halves, the clock stopped every time play was stopped, eliminating wasted time, easing the referee’s burden and creating uniformity across the competition.

Although this idea was never adopted in MLS, the fledgling professional league used a 45-minute countdown clock for each half until 1999.

Arsene Wenger, FIFA’s head of global development, has called for similar changes since taking up his role at the sport’s governing body. In an attempt to do so, he has put forward rules that have increased the volume of extra time at the end of halves put an end to wasting time. But when he first wanted to overhaul the game, Wenger considered the idea of ​​introducing the USISL’s countdown clock to ensure the ball stayed in play for the full 60 minutes. The countdown clock was tested during the 2021 Future of Football Cup, although it was not a FIFA trial.

Salary limit

Within the non-US sports world, the idea of ​​a salary cap is anathema and, as is almost certainly the case in European football, unworkable – player salaries have been rising indefinitely and exponentially for so long that implementing restrictive measures now is just as messy and as would be impossible. worth it as trying to stuff toothpaste back into a tube.

And over the nearly two decades of the league’s existence, the MLS salary cap has been adjusted and relaxed to allow star players to be imported with higher salaries, an effort to broaden the league’s appeal and global footprint.

But overall, the salary cap acts as an equalizer: creating a level playing field and ensuring success is not just a function of spending. The same cannot be said of the major European leagues. Over the past ten seasons, there have been eight different MLS Cup winners. In the same period, there have only been four different champions in the Premier League, with Manchester City winning six times in total and in five of the last six seasons.

Playoff system

There are reasonable arguments for and against a playoff system in every sport. To some extent, it devalues ​​regular-season play, with most of a campaign being an exercise in determining who plays who when the real postseason action begins.

But as any fan of the NFL or NBA will attest, nothing compares to the drama of the playoffs. Playoff tournaments are an integral part of the American sports landscape and are obviously not unique to America. The Football League play-offs consistently deliver some of the most dramatic and meaningful matches on the English football calendar every year, while the World Cup and Champions League knockout rounds are essentially a play-off round for football’s biggest prizes .

Indoor football

There have been several versions of indoor leagues throughout American soccer history, most notably the Major Indoor Soccer League, which ran from 1978 to 1992.

Indoor football used to be extremely popular in Great Britain. The Daily Express National Five-a-Sides was an annual tournament held at Wembley Arena between 1968 and 1986. Professional teams from England and Scotland were invited and more than 8,000 fans filled the stands as matches were broadcast to a national audience. Such events would be unthinkable in the modern era due to the injury risk associated with hyper-competitive pre-season matches on hard surfaces.

With the infrastructure already in place due to the proliferation and level of hockey and basketball arenas across the country, indoor football naturally gained a stronger foothold in America. During US Soccer’s bleak period between the demise of the NASL and the birth of the MLS, playing indoors was often the most viable route to a career in the sport for college soccer standouts who were unable to secure a move abroad obtain.