Stops this bulshit
Has the backpass rule come full circle?
- Thread starter Marwood
- Start date
I don't think it's needed but any rule change that would move the emphasis of modern football away from pressing would be interesting.
Not full circle obviously, no.
Would never happen but maybe they should do what some 5 aside leagues play where the goalkeeper isn't allowed to pass it back to the player that just gave it them........... That could be fun.
Would never happen but maybe they should do what some 5 aside leagues play where the goalkeeper isn't allowed to pass it back to the player that just gave it them........... That could be fun.
I personally don't think a goalkeeper passing the ball is sophisticated. I just find it boring. I want the most talented players on the ball.
Which was the aim of the back pass rule.
Now that would be interesting.
No argument about the rule being a great success.
My point is that its now diluted because all game we now have a version of that vid. Not as extreme obviously but defenders and goalkeepers endlessly shuffling it between them.
A goalkeeper passing it square or backwards to a CB who is even deeper than them. It's dismal stuff to watch that unfortunately some think to be an advancement of the game.
It's a team game. Offensive players should be participating in defensive actions and defensive players should be participating in offensive actions.
If your team has the ability to play as 11 players instead of 10+1 you should be rewarded not punished.
If your team can't press properly or chooses to sit back then you should pay the cost of the opposing team having an extra player in the buildup.
If your team has the ability to play as 11 players instead of 10+1 you should be rewarded not punished.
If your team can't press properly or chooses to sit back then you should pay the cost of the opposing team having an extra player in the buildup.
When the opponent plays a high pressing line and your team's back line (including the keeper) finds solutions through quick passing under pressure and then the team has the whole field in front of it, that's one of the best things about football for me. I love watching keepers like Ederson, Neuer or Ter Stegen being integrated into the build up. It also gives you a numerical advantage which means more space for the midfielders and attackers.
What you suggest would only lead to more (forced) vertical and chaotic football. More long balls, probably more long shots and crosses. No thanks.
This doesn’t happen all that much though. Those three keepers are still working in combination with their defensive line to establish a new phase of play. Sometimes this takes so much time, and genuinely does take all of the heat out of the game. That becomes boring as keepers become experts.
The backpass rule change was important, pivotal and successful.
We’d all do well to indulge the spirit of OP’s point though. Keepers are now so good with their feet that passing the ball back to them is a form of ball retention, with close to zero jeopardy.
I can’t find reliable statistics (PL website suggests Peter Schmeichel averaged 0.13 passes per game, for example) but it would be good to see average passes for a keeper in 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020.
not quite the same thing as the ball is still live.
you see plenty of goals where the keeper gets robbed or makes a poor pass and it’s stolen
you see plenty of goals where the keeper gets robbed or makes a poor pass and it’s stolen
Was that the aim of the back pass rule? Or is that just your preference? (That’s an actual question btw - I don’t actually know). I thought the aim was to stop time wasting, which it has.
I don’t care how much time the keeper spends on the ball if there is genuine jeopardy. One wrong move and you concede. But if you break the press you have a higher likelihood of building a dangerous attack. High risk, high reward. To me, that’s the opposite of boring.
I've played it before in 5 and 7-a side. You know when outfield players aren't allowed in the area? They often play that rule and it's actually pretty good. The same goes for the outfield player not being able to pass straight to the keeper if he gives it to them.
Not that many examples. Not enough to justify the constant tiki taka between goalkeepers and CB's.
Well its the same thing. The rule was stop time wasting and speed the game up. Which means the ball with the goalkeeper less and with the actually talented outfield players more.
How often is their genuine jeopardy in passing back to the keeper?
I think there's a false impression that teams are constantly pressing high up and keepers are always under pressure. They're not. Most of the passing between defenders and goalkeepers is done relatively comfortably.
And I'd say there are very few examples of keepers actually getting robbed.
Mentioned this before but in the first half against City Ederson made 32 passes. That's one half of football. How often did you feel we were likely to get a goal from pressing him?
Yeah can't say I've played that rule at 5 a side before.
Sounds like a lot of fun as a spectator though.
His point is that it's boring. I don't think it is.
My main point is that the objective of the backpass rule has been diluted.
Keepers can't pick it up but I bet they're now on the ball twice as much.
But yes ,I do also find it boring to watch defenders and goalkeepers recycling the ball over and over. Especially when the DM gets involved as well.
And the objective of the original backpass rule was to make the game less boring. Picking the ball up is a completely different thing. There's much less probability of mistakes and less skill involved. Plus you can only do it in your own box. Keepers these days play very advanced. When you prevent them from being on the ball, you force teams to drop an additional player into the backline, meaning that they lose superiority in midfield or attacking areas - which again means less excitement, more long balls and crosses.
I mean, I get that people that tune in to watch a football game don't want to see a keeper having the ball in his hands all the time. But in this case, the keeper is playing football as well - passing, sometimes even dribbling and all that stuff.
Sure the keeper can't pick it up. But as I've said the benefit of that rule change has been almost wiped out because the ball is going back to them so much more in the first place.
That's an odd take.
There's clearly a difference between catching the ball with your hand and the opponent having no chance whatsoever to take it, and receiving the ball at your feet. It's nowhere near comparable and doesn't harm the game in any way.
The back pass rule has been one the best things that happened to football in recent memory. You're complaining about a natural evolution of the game and I personally find it great that a GK must indeed also be good with his feet.
There's clearly a difference between catching the ball with your hand and the opponent having no chance whatsoever to take it, and receiving the ball at your feet. It's nowhere near comparable and doesn't harm the game in any way.
The back pass rule has been one the best things that happened to football in recent memory. You're complaining about a natural evolution of the game and I personally find it great that a GK must indeed also be good with his feet.
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I thought the objective of the back pass rule was to cut out time wasting where there was nothing the opposition could do when the GK had the ball in their hands. It couldn't be countered. Whereas teams are now free to press GKs and will be rewarded handsomely if successful.
I don't remember the back pass rule as being an attempt to outlaw possession deep in the field and building out from the back. You may find it boring, but I'm not sure that's a reason to legislate it out of the game. I'm also not sure how you would do so. Force them to kick it long?
Valdes/Neuer/Ederson have been key elements in building up attacks in successive Guardiola teams who have scored tons of goals. It isn't time wasting and it's not defensive. You find it boring, others find it beautiful. That subjectivity is one of the things I love most about football.
You are clearly overestimating the keepers ability with their feet. There are tons of goals directly or indirectly caused by poor passing from the keepers or simply because they panick under pressure and fail to hoof the ball.
If it wouldn't go back to them, it would go back to a CB instead. Only difference being that there's a player less upfront because an on-field player has to drop into the position of the keeper, starting a "chain reaction" of others dropping deeper. The sweeper keeper actually makes the game more attacking, not less. There's a reason the most attack minded teams in the game always look to sign the keepers that are best with a ball at their feet.
Great suggestion. Rule changes shouldn't be revolutionary, they should just nudge things in the right direction a bit, and be simple to understand. Whether the problem's big enough to need a rule change I'm not sure, I'd wait a bit yet personally.
How many from De Gea this season who is largely agreed to be poor with his feet?
What are people not getting here?
Free kicks provide some of the best goals in football… but we now have obscene amounts of time taken to set them up…. Which is very boring. The sport would benefit from a rule change there I reckon.
Nobody is advocating for the old rule being any good. Nor is anyone suggesting it’s not light years better now.
But it’s definitely boring to see defenders and a keeper pass the ball around for ages. I don’t see how anyone is extracting joy from it, at all.
Free kicks provide some of the best goals in football… but we now have obscene amounts of time taken to set them up…. Which is very boring. The sport would benefit from a rule change there I reckon.
Nobody is advocating for the old rule being any good. Nor is anyone suggesting it’s not light years better now.
But it’s definitely boring to see defenders and a keeper pass the ball around for ages. I don’t see how anyone is extracting joy from it, at all.
I love the current situation incorporating GKs in the build-up. Either helps beat the press or turns the ball over.
Keepers getting good on the feet and defenders playing from the back is a direct consequence of the backpass rule. Took a generation but you can see its effect now.
Which team even does that?
Exactly. One in twenty odd games. And this from a keeper who is supposed to be poor with the ball.
So we're not talking a lot of goals from keeper ball playing errors. It's hardly the high risk, entertaining stuff.
Plenty do.
I said earlier in this seasons game against us, City completely dominated, yet Ederson made 32 passes in one half. Forty touches in total for the half!
Watching that game, whilst wiping away my salty tears, I still found myself thinking for all City's ability, that it was still painful watching them circulating the ball around the back and DM. When they're way ahead and completely on top.
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It’s not even close to being the same, atm it’s just like a defender having the ball, the keeper used to stand there with no intent to play the ball and wait for the striker to come to him, pick it up throw it to another player get it back rinse and repeat.
I enjoy keepers getting involved, I think I’d genuinely stop watching football if you could back pass again
Most of the times the teams do it just to loose possession after the keeper made a most of the times useless long ball. But using the keeper to be a part of the build-up as some teams use it's risky.
And besides, with Maguire doing all the bad passing, no one will notice Dave
You're missing the point. I'm not saying we should scrap the backpass rule.
But its definitely not just like a defender having the ball. It's the interaction between defender and goalkeeper, the shuffling of the ball between them. That's the bit that's now slowing the game down, negating the initial aim of the rule change to some extent.
That didn't really happen for the first 20 years after the rule change. In that period the defender would have the ball but he'd likely pass forwards and sideways. Going back to the keeper was a last resort. The goalkeeper didn't want it and the defender didn't want to give it him.
I mean, entertainment is subjective but I believe most people associate it with goals and a bias for attacking in a football context. So by those metrics, the one team that came to your mind is one of the most entertaining in the world. That should tell you at least something.
Exactly, the keeper plays like a defender effectively. It would make more sense to reduce the amount of players from 11 to 10 if you want to make the game more entertaining than forbidding the keeper to get involved in the build up.
Who wants football with an extra defender in the penalty area twenty yards behind the rest of the back 4?
What you get then is what we're seeing. Pinball betweem the defenders/goalkeepers.
It works for City, I'm not passing judgement on how effective it is. It strangles the opposition, tires them out, drains them.
But it has slowed the game down, the build up is monotonous. Not what the rule change intended.
That has nothing to do with the keeper. It's simply that what you claim as slow is the most effective way of playing football. The game has evolved, the kick'n'rush days are over.
I’m not missing the point, the point you are making is just daft.
The rule was literally bought in to stop keepers having it in their hands out of play / on the Floor in front of them about to pick it up for half the game.
Being able to back pass didn’t slow the game down it literally stopped it. What’s next limit how much the back 4 can pass it between themselves, 2 touch football ?
I understand what you mean, but your suggestion/solution doesn’t work. In the 1980s teams passed the ball back to the keeper just as much. Instead they could pick the ball up and couldn’t be tackled, leading to some farcical situations and time wasting. Graeme Souness’s famous clip of winning the ball and then booting it miles back to the keeper for example.
Your main issue seems to be passing the ball to the goalkeeper. Then if you wanted to change this rule, it should be related to backwards passing, rather than the backpass. I think a shot clock could be the solution, a team’s 30 seconds on the ball maximum. That way you wouldn’t see 10 unnecessary passes from defenders to goalkeeper.
Your main issue seems to be passing the ball to the goalkeeper. Then if you wanted to change this rule, it should be related to backwards passing, rather than the backpass. I think a shot clock could be the solution, a team’s 30 seconds on the ball maximum. That way you wouldn’t see 10 unnecessary passes from defenders to goalkeeper.
To me this is just a way of enforcing your favorite brand of football through the rules. Somebody doesn't like possession football and wants to ditch it this way.
I for instance think counter attacking teams that park the bus and then play very vertically are not enjoyable to watch at all. Only counting goals when all players are in the opponent's half would solve that and probably make it more enjoyable for me. But I still wouldn't suggest such a rule change. I also hate it when players take long shots all the time - they are spectacular when they go in but for each goal, there are 20 balls flying into the stands, gifting the ball to the opponent and taking the excitement out of the match. Should I demand forbidding them?
On point.