Sport Matters

Guy:Incognito

Just watching the repeat of sport matters. Niall Quinn is in Brazil watching a game and the ref took out a can of spray paint when he awarded a free. He sprayed a circle where the ball was to be hit from and a line 10 yards away for the wall to stand at. The guy with quinn said they were trying it for fifa.

IMO its an interesting thing, and stops the wall stealing yards. Also stops the player moving the ball. Good idea imo, but whether itll work or not is another thing.

KdjaCL

Can imagine a CL game where the object isnt to score but to win free kicks around the box, the pitch will look like a bad painting after 15 minutes.



kdjac

Kingp35

Yeah plus this will take far too long to draw a line everytime there is a free kick around the box. The pitch would be in bits too and I cant see many clubs agreeing to have there pitch wrecked. Very strange idea and I dont think it will be introduced

Pigman II

Instead of Spraypaint he could get something akin to an oversized golf-tee and stick in in the ground ten-yards along the axis between taker and goalnet.

wheres me jumpa

havent heard of sport matters, what channel and when? any good?

i think there are bigger problems in football that fifa should be focusing on. goal line camera's for one. players will seldom gain more than a yard or two which will often be noticed by the officials anyway.

Guy:Incognito

Kingp35 wrote:

Yeah plus this will take far too long to draw a line everytime there is a free kick around the box. The pitch would be in bits too and I cant see many clubs agreeing to have there pitch wrecked. Very strange idea and I dont think it will be introduced

It would hardly be permenant paint they use. It took the ref about 20 seconds in all. He takes much longer than that setting up and tellign where the kicker and the wall have to be anyway. Its not like he takes out a ruler and measures anything. He quickly does a rough circle and then walks ten yards to make a rough line about a metre wide that the wall isnt allowed o cros

redspider

Sports Matters is a good series but not very well advertised/promoted. Niall Quinn was in Brazil with this one analysing how footballers get selected for clubs, and then find their way off to Europe, etc.

Niall found out for the first time how entertaining the Campeanato Brazillian football can be. There is a lot of skill on show and for me, the entertainment and quality on display can be more often than not better than what you will see in England and in the big European leagues and the CL. Channel 4 showed some of these games last year, at 4 am in the morning midweek so setting the video was required, but for any deep thinking football follower, knowing about the Brazillian game is a must.

As for the wall+ball spray idea, they brought it in for several reasons, one to protect refs who in some cases could turn a blind eye on walls creeping forward, bribery is a problem in Brazil and because the players got so good at replacing the ball and moving the wall. I think its a good idea as there can be no ambiguit about it. If a player steps over the line, book him.

Btw, another innovation they have are Female "refs assitants", lines"men". Usually pretty ones as well so at least when you are called offside you doint mind as much. I'm not sure if they have Female Ref's yet.

In terms of needed technology, the planned intelligent ball should be introduced asap as in England its sorely needed.

Brazil is a great footballing country and its a pity that Europe in a way is just using the countries player resources. What we could be doing is watching the games on prime-time TV, and appreciating them and giving money back to the clubs, etc, although the corruption means that only a part would ever filter down to the players and keep some of the best ones in their country.

redspider