111: Physical Interaction In Women's Soccer?

Am I the only one here finding hard to believe the level of tolerance for physical interaction between the players here compared to that in the men's soccer?

110: Alternative to Current Soccer's Penalty Foul System-2

It seems like in suggesting that alternative in post 105 I have again gone my usual way of touching my ear with the hand from the other side. Making a Penalty foul comprising more than one kick from the Penalty mark and that all those kicks should inter the goal in order for the Penalty as a whole to be counted as a Goal, seems much better solution. It does not need any of the additional things suggested in that post.

On second thought, my previous suggestion may not be exactly like touching an ear with the hand from the other side, because you may, for example, require 5 shots to enter the goal and still not reduce  the advantage of shooting from that position enough. Therefore a better alternative seems to be to combine both those suggestions and give the choice to the team on whom the Penalty was counted.

Nevertheless, this multiple shots idea, by itself, makes huge improvement over the current system and is very simple to be followed during playing time. It is hard to see that a VAR system was implemented before applying such a simple solution to the big problem of fouls in the Penalty area. Within general guidelines, one path of implementing this idea is to leave determining the number of shots to the referee.  As much as things are left to the judgment of the referee as much as it makes sense to to give him the tool for more precise application of that judgment.       

109: Commentating Away From The Field

Somebody needs to tell Fox female soccer commentators that it is okay to talk about what is going on in the field at the direct level. The entire commentating time does not need to be a continuous lesson of analysis and history and the bigger picture. Actually, other things far from expressing what is seen and reactions to it, usually take only a minor part of the commentating.
As a sample, I just watched the first half of Netherlands vs. Japan, which was not even one of the cold games that may need additional help with talking. Nevertheless, obtain a transcript of the commentating and look at the amount of "analysis" thrown at the viewer by the female commentator within just that half of the match.
I never heard women commentating on soccer elsewhere before. But I think that it would not even occur to them to do like this if they were from countries where soccer is like American Football or basketball here in popularity. 
No sane TV network would put somebody commentating like this on TV if we were in a country with soccer being the popular game. It might as well just leave the microphone to a toddler babbling continuously.  

108: Yellow Not Green Card

Of course it is the yellow card in soccer I was targeting in post 105 not the green card as I wrote. But the mistake did not happen with lack of attention. I wondered how could the green color be used like that given how often it is used as a signal for permission not refusal but still accepted that it is green and did not remember the true color until hours later. 

107: Is this round of 16 or 64?

What is going on in this round of 16 of soccer world cup? I record the games to watch them in sequence and just about finished the first half of Sweden vs. Canada and at this moment it feels like each game is worse than the one preceding it. Had the playing at round of 32 been like this I doubt that I would have subscribed to cable TV channels to watch those games. Who would have expected that things may not even stay the same but move in reverse like this in women's world cup?

106: Correction to the post titled "Who benefit from that?"

In that post I said that the commercials cannot be skipped but later I have found that most if not all of those commercials can be skipped if one is careful enough not to fall within their sections to begin with. Therefore there is a motive for messing recorded DVR watching, other than just wickedness. 

105: Alternative to Current Soccer's Penalty Foul System

Soccer rules regarding the Fouls in the Penalty Area may need to change. It is like an all or nothing system which seems impractical. One could as well make a rule that the first team making any violation losses the game but it also seems impractical. Instead, an alternative system incorporating that a Penalty kick could be awarded for accumulation of multiple violations in the Penalty Area, instead of just one, seems to make more sense. Such system can be applied for, for example, the first 75 minuets of a match while the last 15 minutes follows the current rule of one Penalty per each violation. An alternative or in combination with this time division thing could be to make accumulation of violations  for a Penalty carried against the violating team to other matches like Soccer Green Cards or even more so by making them accumulate through different official tournaments. 

The Penalty rules of  soccer might have survived throughout all this time probably because it was not applied even close to this sensitivity with the current VAR system. I had not watched much soccer for decades until last year when I decided to watch that world cup. I used to see Penalties so rarely given that one can use them to point very selectively to a specific match. Now, it is hard to imagine such identification for even a line of  three matches or less in a tournament. 

104: This World Cup's 32 for 24

Since I noticed it, I have been wondering why are there only 24 countries competing at the 32 stage of this soccer world cup? Believe it or not it turned out that there are countries who want to participate but they are not given or allowed to compete  those empty spots. How hard could it be to come up with qualification rules that allocate every available spot to a team?  

Diminishing Quality?

I preferred this soccer world cup over that of last year for reasons one of them is how the players looked more like working as one entity through their accurate ball passing and good use of the width of the field while attacking the opposing team. To me these games looked more professional than street soccer, than I can remember those of last year did.

Another thing was how normal and reasonable the behaviour related to taking advantage of opportunities that become available to players. There were less missing the goal as if it is expected to be in a different place but moved without prior notice. There were also, in my view,  good sense for when to take advantage of an opportunity, versus trying to make a better opportunity of it but instead end up losing it. The teams of this world cup sounded to me more balanced in how much good playing far from the goal is accompanied by the same near the goal. There were less of that thing seeing elsewhere with players knowing how to play a good game but not how to end the ball in the net of the opposing team.

Unfortunately, that was earlier in this world cup and now I am seeing less of that even though I tried to take things like the wasting of opportunities and sending the ball away from the goal I saw with the South Korean and Jamaican Teams as  exceptions.  

Of course, I am not denying other qualities here, like the effort to present a good game even though the result may not matter much, while the English Team of last year world cup who should not have advanced near where it reached to begin with plays noticeably with less effort for the third position as if it is beneath them. 

This But Not That

Women playing soccer at the level I currently see, what is not to like? But women commentating on soccer like some of what I currently see, please save me! 
On a more serious note to make my criticism a constructive one, I advice those women to obtain a transcript of their commentating and look at how much they extend comments they make, from something that may have some value, to cram with it things that are secondary at subsequent levels and/or hardly provide any related value, because they are already known or assumed, diverting focus from that root with the value. 
By the way, what is wrong with those referees who risk being wrong on big decisions to flex their muscles showing they do not need to consult the video of the VAR?  

Who benefit from that?

Why does a TV network conveying sport games keep the viewer updated on the score of a game happening simultaneously while he watches another one like Fox is currently doing with this soccer FIFA world cup? How many would find it hard to get the score from other sources like the Internet if they want? On the other hand, with the spread of DVR capability nowadays, the network could lose viewers for that second game and the advertisement that happen in it which cannot be skipped. Moreover, there is a way that update can happen without forcing receiving it on every viewer if limited to the commentator without showing it on the screen. The commentator can signal that he is going to give the update on the other game giving the viewer the opportunity to mute the TV while that update is going on. 

Nevertheless, despite the potential wickedness here I may still enjoy watching these games even though I already know the score. I may choose not to watch women sports elsewhere, but the soccer playing in this world cup is to me generally better than that of the world cup of last year. 

Third option for watching sport games

How about instead of just muting the TV or listening to the commentator, a third option of listening to only the sounds occurring in the field without commentating is provided to the TV watcher?  

That Soccer Commentator

I know that commenting on sport games involves mostly supplying unnecessary information. But one of those two women commenting on the current games on the Fox networks takes that to a level I feel I can easily choose things like, for example, tolerating double the advertising time, in exchange for being relieved from it. It feels like every comment she does is stretched to cram three lines of text or more with multiple layers of unnecessary information. 

What Is Wrong With Those Soccer "Analysts"

What is wrong with those guys who appear on Fox channels to comment on the current FIFA football world cup, and anyone else acting like them? Why don't they put a better effort to voice a real opinion on the action of referees? What do they think that they are here for? It does not need an expert to always stay on the neutral position.

I just finished watching the Japan vs. Scotland on the DVR. I do not know how Scotland really deserved the punishment of that penalty kick. But at least there were some of those Fox guys who opposed or questioned the validity of that, unlike the handball situation that happened around the 83:26 minute which was not even mentioned as a question with that commenting panel after the game? Are you people for real?

How could the same referee who decided that first penalty kick not decide the validity of that handball action? And the funny thing is that there were no VAR review either (Actually neither for the entire game but it clearly should not lower the responsibility of a referee that he chose not to have that assistance). I think that penalty kicks were awarded in last year world cup for less than that handball action. I just searched for the rules on that and found this UPDATE which seems to suggests that handball deserved a penalty kick because the hand action made the silhouette unnaturally larger. So to me the officially winning team did not really win here and the real result could have been 2 to 1 for the opposing side.