No-Hands Soccer/Football

[Airbrush]

In the discussion about the World Cup Soccer some were debating the concept of trying out a modified version of soccer where the goalie position is eliminated.  This would result in much higher scoring (or you can make the goal smaller).  One poster said his kids play in a youth group where they play with no goalie, 6 players per side, and a smaller goal.  What do you think of this?  I propose an experiment with a high-school league to try out this kind of soccer using no goalie.  My experience in playing soccer informally in high school and college was that goalie was NOT a popular position.  Most coveted position was center forward.  Everybody wanted to be free to run around on the field, passing the ball around, making tackles, lobbing the ball in front of their goal, and attacking their goal.  When nobody wanted to play goalie, we had to rotate, and when I was goalie I was not happy.  When it came time for a penalty kick someone told me to just choose a corner and dive for it.  What a lousy position to be in.  At best I had a 50% probability of diving to the correct corner.

Edited August 3, 2018 by Airbrush

[zapatos]

41 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

In the discussion about the World Cup Soccer some were debating the concept of trying out a modified version of soccer where the goalie position is eliminated.  This would result in much higher scoring (or you can make the goal smaller).  One poster said his kids play in a youth group where they play with no goalie, 6 players per side, and a smaller goal.  What do you think of this?  I propose an experiment with a high-school league to try out this kind of soccer using no goalie.  My experience in playing soccer informally in high school and college was that goalie was NOT a popular position.  Most coveted position was center forward.  Everybody wanted to be free to run around on the field, passing the ball around, making tackles, lobbing the ball in front of their goal, and attacking their goal.  When nobody wanted to play goalie, we had to rotate, and when I was goalie I was not happy.  When it came time for a penalty kick someone told me to just choose a corner and dive for it.  What a lousy position to be in.  At best I had a 50% probability of diving to the correct corner.

The reason they play with no goalie is not because no one wants to play that position, but because they are taking the pressure off a child who might be made to feel responsible for giving up goals. I've also seen youths play with two goalies in each goal to accomplish the same thing.

One of the major problems with eliminating the goalie position is that there would be much higher scoring.

[Airbrush]

15 hours ago, zapatos said:

The reason they play with no goalie is not because no one wants to play that position, but because they are taking the pressure off a child who might be made to feel responsible for giving up goals. I've also seen youths play with two goalies in each goal to accomplish the same thing.

One of the major problems with eliminating the goalie position is that there would be much higher scoring.

That is a great reason to not have a goalie, feelings of guilt at not stopping goals.   What kid wants to NOT run around on the field with the others?  Who wants to be different? What's wrong with higher scoring?

Standard soccer is great also, don't get me wrong, I love the game as it is...just so someone ELSE plays goalie.  

But what if there was an alternative?

Edited August 3, 2018 by Airbrush

[Janus]

15 hours ago, zapatos said:

The reason they play with no goalie is not because no one wants to play that position, but because they are taking the pressure off a child who might be made to feel responsible for giving up goals. I've also seen youths play with two goalies in each goal to accomplish the same thing.

One of the major problems with eliminating the goalie position is that there would be much higher scoring.

The reason they play with no goalie is that, at that level (we are talking about kids under the age of 8),  it hard enough to score a goal even without a goalie. And they only do this for the first two age levels. After that, they add the goalie.

[zapatos]

51 minutes ago, Janus said:

The reason they play with no goalie is that, at that level (we are talking about kids under the age of 8),  it hard enough to score a goal even without a goalie. And they only do this for the first two age levels. After that, they add the goalie.

I believe you but I haven't seen the lack of a goalie for that reason. My experience is that the only way really young kids stop a goal is if it happens to hit them on the way in. 

Where my kids played soccer the kindergarten team was the youngest, but they let any kid play as long as they were out of diapers.

[taeto]

Mildly OT, but: what would be wrong with baseball without the catcher, now we are brainstorming on?

[Airbrush]

Baseball without a catcher?  What would it be like?  It would then become some player's job to walk over and pickup the baseball off the ground after each pitch, adding painfully more time to an already dead-boring sport.  Your suggestion is a false equivalence.

Soccer with no goalie is a breeze!  You can shoot at the goal from further away.  Maybe goals beyond a certain distance can count 2 points?  Defenders do their best to block the shots, but cannot use their hands or arms.  Penalty kicks are simply shot from the midfield line, or further distance to compensate for no goalie.  You can even make the goal smaller in height and width.

Edited August 6, 2018 by Airbrush

[Airbrush]

I apologize for calling baseball boring.  There are probably many fans of baseball around here, and good for them.  The important thing is to get some exercise from any sport...that is a good thing, no matter what sport.

Edited August 10, 2018 by Airbrush

[Sensei]

On 10.08.2018 at 10:33 PM, Airbrush said:

I apologize for calling baseball boring.  There are probably many fans of baseball around here, and good for them.  The important thing is to get some exercise from any sport...that is a good thing, no matter what sport.

Now we have e-Sports, and e-Sports World Championships/Olympics. People in theater, stadium, or home, are seating for hours watching how other people are playing computer games..

http://fortune.com/2018/06/28/esports-olympics-paris-2024-ioc-forum/

 

Edited August 14, 2018 by Sensei