How to encourage attacking play in the A-League

Basketball is a high scoring game which is played worldwide. Easy to score---I don't think so! As far as "Aussie Rules" are concerned,there ARE very low scoring games from time to time. If an "AR" team beat another 4 goals to 3, & neither term kicked a "behind",the total scores would be 24 to 18,which looks huge! :) Back in the day,the scores were posted in "Goals" & "Points"(behinds). Nowadays,TV Networks seem to like to post the total points.

Prof.- From the tone of your comment I have to assume you have seen the Italian version of that modern phrase that you,and I, hate so much,"parking the bus". I first saw it practised with aplomb when Fiorentina came to Glasgow to play in a European tie back in 1959.Rather than scream and shout abuse like most of the 80,000 crowd I sat amazed at the discipline,know how, and talent on show,Rangers having at least 80-90% of possession and yet losing the game 0-2.That then was catenaccio, how to play against a team when playing away from home,not knowing what you were to run up against,and keep the goals against as low as possible remembering a return game was to be played 2 weeks later. How the game was played was dependent on the players being used and in Kurt Hamrin, a wonderful goal scoring winger,Fiorentina had the firepower to take the tactic out of it's defensive vein and get a result.Herrera some time later,1965, took the tactic to it's apex with Inter Milan. I too saw much to be admired in the actual performance of the tactic but to be honest did not like what it's long term use would do for the support that followed the game.Luckily Celtic proved the Achilles heel of the tactic in 1967 and its use passed into history.jb

Thanks for the input everybody who contributed. Don't know whether I gained anything from it though ,football fans are in the end a conservative mob and I understand that fully. Just on what the professor said above he is wrong in saying I wrote this article on the assumption that people wanted to see more goals. I wrote it because I wanted to see more attacking play,more goal mouth incidents rather than stacked defences. I was looking for a way to encourage this. Football in the end though is about its unique skills on the park, that's why we fans watch it warts and all,but it doesn't mean we should sit on our arse and not strive to make it better.

Then there is no point in changing for you should be fine with what's already set for football.

What Professor Ross says.

Actually no I would be fine with it even then.

The changes that you mention have nothing to do with changing the rules -- they are part of an evolution in playing styles and techniques. The scoring system has remained unchanged. Towser is proposing a change to the scoring system. Towser's proposal is based on the assumption (possibly accurate) that people want to see more goals. However football is a more nuanced game than that. Ask an Italian fan of their great national teams, and you'll find their admiration for a team whose defence was so strong that the best players and best teams struggled to score against them. To put this down with phrases like "parking the bus" is an insult to the strategy, discipline and tactics required for such a game.

PA - "Leave the game as it is etc", a strange statement depending on the time frame being considered.The game has changed since it's inception way back when,and when that frame is condensed the changes are quite dramatic.From 1870 to 1920 teams lined up in a "standard" 1-2-3-5 formation,every team in every country across the world.Then came the "academic approach" and men started to analyse how best to deploy eleven men to achieve a pre-set target,Since then the game has changed dramatically be it in player fitness & playing equipment so that now we find the tactical formations being used have almost done a complete about turn. If this simple fact is accepted then what can be done to tweak the rules under which the game is played to offset the apparent "gains" that have been achieved due to this development. That is what is being discussed here and IMO any rule that allows a team to gain a perceived advantage by constricting the playing area by 50%, ie the offside trap,should be looked at objectively.If that was done the only real change to be considered by that "academic brethern" (our coaches), would be to consider the change when planning how their team will perform all across the field. jb.

PA as you know from my previous posts i agree entirely. I was despairing for a while that anyone else was going to call this ridiculous idea for what it is. It sounds like a typical afl mindset though i accept that most here are football people.

Exactly, their's no incentive to try to score goals. You get 3 points for a 1-0 win the same way you get 3 points for a 4-3 win. Take the 4-3. Under my system the winner gets 4 points and the loser gets 1 point. So there's incentive to try and score more goals because you get more points. Similarly a 1-1 gets each team 2 points (as opposed to just 1). Life's not perfect, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't aspire to be close to perfect as possible.

I don't see Adelaide United and Brisbane Roar being rewarded for their attacking play. In fact, I don't recall any one saying if you play more attacking football, we'll consider a rule change for points allocation. You're target 50 goals each. They play attacking football and Newcastle and Perth don't. That's life. If Newcastle and Perth are as in touch with their fans as they make out they are, then perhaps they'll look to hire a coach with the attacking nous that other coaches possess. You've got to really the good with the bad; pretty with the ugly. Life's not meant to be perfect. If it were then we wouldn't be having this discussion.

So the status quo? How does that encourage attacking football?

And then there is the Tahiti Football League. They earn ONE point for a loss. Now that's how you do it! http://metro.co.uk/2013/10/14/tahitis-footballers-are-never-sad-under-new-one-point-for-a-loss-system-4145928/

Thanks for the input jb can see now you mention wingers and centre forwards only being offside in the last 18 metres of the pitch what your getting at and of course the bit about linesmen. In the end any method that helps more attacking play gets a tick from me. The average punter at the match doesn't sit down with a clipboard and analyse the game ,he/ she supports the team, wants to win ,but also does want to be entertained and nobody can convince me that defensive play is a better spectacle for the average Joe than an attacking display.

I like it! :P

3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss.

We're all fine with a call like that until its your team on the receiving end and its just cost you a Grand Final, Premiership or soon to be FFA CUP.

In journalism, a journalist is taught something very important and that's to KISS - Keep It Simple Stu pid. Leave the game as it is and learn to take the good with the bad.

Agree, if a replay shows that a player was a teensy bit offside and it wasn't called, I'm fine with it, but if a replay shows a player was even remotely onside and got called offside, I get annoyed.

SVB Just used the A-League as an obvious example for us. More concerned really with not seeing negative play as a fan in football per se . However the A-League is a league where the gap between tactics /fitness and skill level could widen. We hope not and the skill level and tactics to counteract parking the bus evolves as you are indicating in your own way, rather than change the game in any way. That is ideally the way to progress both domestically and at International level.