Yesterday, we were excited by Marco van Basten's suggestion that penalty shootouts should be replaced by those magnificent, 1996-1998 MLS-era shootouts, where players must run the ball towards goal and beat the goalkeeper.
We were far less enthused, however, by the farcical notion that football would be better without offside. Van Basten, now FIFA's Technical Director, insisted that the removal of offsides would rescue football from resembling handball, with so many defenders camped in front of goals.
"I think it can be very interesting watching a game without offside," he said.
Football now is already looking a lot like handball with nine or ten defenders in front of the goal. It's difficult for the opposition to score a goal as it's very difficult to create something in the small pieces of space they give you.
So if you play without offside you get more possibilities to score a goal.
In fairness to the former Netherland manager, who will make proposals to his close friend and FIFA president Gianni Infantino when he hears more 'from the world of football', it's one ludicrous suggestion from a number of potentially interesting ones - most of which were met with intrigue and healthy discussion.
The potential offside abolishment was politely shot down by a host of Premier League managers yesterday (incidentally, the FA would have one of eight votes should Van Basten's proposal be brought to FIFA's law-making body). Over in France, however, Rennes manager Christian Gourcuff couldn't hide his utter contempt for Van Basten's offside suggestion, and provided a far less diplomatic response.
Gourcuff - whose son Yoann currently plays for him at Rennes - described the Dutch icon's offside notion as "immeasurable bullshit," and insisted the lack of offsides would ruin the game in an extraordinary rant during his press conference ahead of Rennes' Ligue 1 clash with Guingcamp.
This is the worst crap I have read in a long time and yet I did not read it wrong. It’s immeasurable bullshit.
We would return to the time of village versus village, and at the time it ended with players being killed.
The offside is a manifestation of collective intelligence. There would be no more collective spirit if the offside rule was removed.
The offside rule is fundamental – if you do not understand that, you do not understand football.
The former Algeria manager is, perhaps, not Van Basten's biggest fan, then. Either that or he bloody loves the offside rule.
