Just so you know what I would really love from football, see this game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ-AjedNnAs

it is the game I remember the most (can you guess I like Atlético de Madrid? ), and there was a lot of defense, if not, the result would have been 17-16, given the ultra offensive play by both teams. If most football games were like that one, believe me that I would never fall asleep watching them

I think that is one of the main draws of football; that despite having the ‘better’ team I’m not guaranteed that my chosen team will win. An example of this from last year in England would be Manchester City beating their more illustrious neighbours twice in the same season. And as another example, to keep with the Spanish theme… Northern Ireland beating Spain 3-2 in Belfast during the qualifiers to the Euro Championships.

I’ll admit the defensive strategies can lead to 0-0 draws of negligible entertainment value, but doesn’t a guarantee of scores somewhat devalue the spectacle? Part of it surely must be the not knowing what’s coming next. As it is, my chosen sport is actually quite similar to football, but did away with the offside rule entirely and I haven’t played in a goalless draw in years without having scores in double figures either. The value of the clean sheet is preserved with an increase in scores.

I’m just asking for something similar in football, good defense, but good offensive play. There are games where one of the teams just lock up their goal, and just wait for the other team to make a mistake and score, to lock the goal again for the rest of the game. Sometimes it’s even the 2 teams who do that, which leads to the most boring sporting event you can watch. So, easier ways to score would remove that, you would need to defend a lot also, but you’ll need to score more than your opponent and it would make it almost impossible for teams to play for a 0-0 result.

I’d have to disagree with most of your other points though. Over the course of a season typically referee decisions will even out. When playing competitive sport the participants will accept that this is the case – sometimes it goes for you, sometimes it doesn’t. In my opinion this is part of the drama of sport, even in Cup matches where a single decision can have a more dramatic influence. If you’re good enough, a wrong call shouldn’t affect the result. Even when it does, it gets passed into legend and just adds to the overall thrill of the game. Russian linesman, anyone?

More goals doesn’t necessarily make for a more exciting game. And why should the art of good defending be sacrificed for introducing more attacking play? I personally find basketball a very boring and uninvolving sport – despite the high scores. I can certainly appreciate the athelticism of the players, but the game to me is just a constant procession of alternating scores. Obviously sometimes the sequence is broken to lead to a winner and loser. For me, anyway, more scores is not leading to a more exciting match.

The Spanish went totally crazy after winning I suspect is not all that unexpected. Spain have consistently underperformed at World Cups and European Championships for as long as I can remember. They’ve always looked good, but always been found wanting towards the end of tournaments. This might mark their breakthrough. Football is the national sport in Spain – look at the followings of Barca and Real (there’s also quite a split in the fans judging by the flags on show). Winning at basketball will not have had the same resonance, either in the media, or with the average sports fan. A lot of shrugged shoulders and ’so what’ I suspect will have been the general reaction.

As for the mistakes, we should just accept the fact that there will never be a system that will be able to tell the difference between a foul and a dive. Even with replays it will be hard to determine that, so the replays will only result in more debate and, as a result, more delay.

(And congrats to the Spanish team, it was a wonderful champion.)

It would go against the spirit of the rules to have certain rules “optional”.

I kinda agree…

The commercial elements wants goals but I think the majority of fans still want some good football to watch….