World Cup Knockout Tournament.... Round of 16 and on....

Soccer has been around a long time and has an incredible amount of tradition.  Like any sport, there are lots of rules that could use alteration but it is tough because the sport is worldwide and it is old.

But anyone pretending that American Footballs system of marking where a guy goes down, and then bringing out chains to measure to the inch for a first down is somehow a good system that couldn't be improved is either crazy or blind.  Or pass interference rule.  Or the strike zone in baseball.  My point is that it is the same for every sport.

But to address some of the biggest complaints... 

First the 3 sub rule.  It is in place to protect the smaller teams with smaller budgets.  Unlimited or increased subs mean that rich teams that can essentially afford 2 full starting teams would have a massive advantage.  Smaller teams can barely afford a starting 11  of decent quality and would never be able to compete against a bigger club who could bring in a fresh second team.

The clock, the fake injuries, the time wasting....  I also agree that this is a big problem that is easily solved.  Don't keep a secret clock on the sideline, let there be a clock that counts up from zero that starts the second there is a stoppage.  It is for everyone to see.  So when someone goes down with an injury - who cares - you can see the time being added - let him roll around for as long as he wants.  This will stop this type of behavior - along with the walking when subs are made - and other time wasting BS.  But once again, tradition is the biggest obstacle to this - but I do see this changing one day.

Fouls in the box.  PK's are too valuable for a simple foul in the box.  I am open to suggestions on this one - but I think that you keep the foul in the box as a penalty - but you have a simple review when penalties are called.  There is a natural break of time when a penalty is called - and a simple video review with a "yes" or "no" is relayed electronically to the ref.  If it is a dive, a yellow is issued.  If it is a penalty, the PK is awarded.  Either way - no extra time is needed.

But overall - none of these things ruin the sport for me - and the thought that the sport needs to be tailored to Americans is just silly.  Show me one sport that doesn't have these similar problems and slowness to move.  Soccer is clearly slow and very intrenched in tradition - and FIFA is a corrupt old boy network - but overall I find it much more tolerable than most sports.

The game was not designed to be a contest to see who could to be fouled in the box.  If you go back and watch FA Cup Finals from the 60's, 70's and 80's, you'll see very few "shouts" for hand-balls or other penalites, and it generally took a full body blow to knock down someone with a legitimate scoring chance in the box.  Now, the whole idea seems to be to become as fragile as possible either to feign contact at all, or to create contact that could just as easilly have been avoided.  It's ridiculous, and it isn't "just llike we see in other sports," because the penatly is so draconian. Imagine Tim Duncan flopping to draw a foul and being awarded 23 foul shots.  You get the idea.

And, as noted, it's not just flopping.  It's "keeping one's leg in" and going limp at the knees and other crap designed to win by arbitration, not competition. It all sucks.

I don't see why the box can't be about 2/3 the size that it is now.  Or perhaps you get rid of the box altogether and simply award PK's when "clear scoring chances" are cancelled out by foul, whevever they may be.

Commentators, writers, pundits, etc. should stop talking about how well someone "sells" a faux foul, and focus more on shaming the tools who do.

All PK's awarded should be reviewed (I"m on the fence as to when), and divers banned five matches. Serial offenders can go back to Uruguay where they belong.  

All goals scored (or waved off, after they wind up in the net) should be reviewed immediately following the score to see if it was on-side.  I would be curious as to what the game would look like if that rule was tossed altogether, but I suspect there would be some unintended consequences we probably wouldn't like.

The clock and time wasting are a joke.  They are easilly remedied, as mentioned several times above.  The fact that there seems to be little stomach for doing so on the world front makes me suspicious of the world front in general.  Yes, even more than usual. 

If a true scoring chance has been denied, then it should still be a PK.

Any other foul in the box, the ball should be walked back, on a linear plane, to the edge of the penalty box and a free kick is awarded from there.

The foul Robben drew should have just been a free kick.

The American perspective on 'soccer' (the only country on the planet that still uses this term) is just that, "american point of view" the so called changes of discussion will never even be considered under FIFA regulations, and traditional policy that was set forth well over a hundred years ago, but yet the climate in america is to change the entire sport to 'their' way of thinking, which is asinine to the rest of the world, and to those who follow the sport from the american side of the pond; there are numerous reasons why the acceptence of the sport on american soil is neglected, has no future, a league (MLS) that is laughed upon worlwide as nothing more than a joke, paying over the hill europeans vast salaries, surounding them by 3rd division players, playing in 28,000 seat stadiums, crowning Champions that go nowhere on the international competitive market. You'll never see the World Cup won by the USA, at least in this millenium, and frankly speaking, who cares? with the exception of a very small minority, soccer in the USA is, and always will be an amatuer sport. I'll take the NFL and the Super Bowl over the FIFA World Cup Finals any day! although anyone outside of the USA could not even remotely agree, or understand why. change the rules, and regulations of FIFA? not in your wildest imagination, or lifetime,

Belgium -vs- Argentina [DRAW]

Thoughts on tweaking offsides rule? What do you think strategy would be if there were no offsides, etc.  Or you much prefer the current rule as it is?