im against replay, the reason soccer is great is because of the flow... for 45+ minutes each half it flows, no tv timeouts or anything of the sort... I think the refs need to work better together to figure it out you can't make any thing perfect, human error is part of the game... I do like that they give players yellow cards for diving now
I agree that the flow is great in soccer, and I also agree that their should be some legitimate communication between the ref and line judges to try and get calls right like they do in other major sports-they get together in football, basketball, and hockey all the time....occasional disruptions in flow are needed to get calls right sometimes. I would happily give up
some of the flow in soccer if it meant more legitimate reffing was taking place. Hockey does this frequently and they still maintain great game flow.
The problem in my view with the way soccer currently plays out is that an OBSCENE amount of calls are blown, and dives are rewarded, because they need another referee on the field so the ONE ref isn't always like 30 yards behind the action that he needs to be seeing to make the right calls (and NON-calls) at the right time. For purists that don't like replay, I think adding a 2nd ref should be a "tolerable" compromise...the fact that goals/non-goals over the goal line are missed, and ridiculously bad dives are rewarded is a reflection of the fact that too much is asked of the one ref on the field. AT LEAST get some real discussions with line judges for a little help on calls that the ref simply is out of position to make.
Soccer does itself a huge disservice with trying to officiate that much field with one whistle. I get the whole "remove the officiating from the game" concept, but it is too much of a good thing.
