[nas] My First Taste of Multi-Point Scoring (R, implied)

["Alan Balthrop" <alan@kicksfan.com>]

While I solicit and welcome intelligent discussion, this message may
divert into rant mode. Please take this into account when reading.

Background:

When the two competing indoor leagues merged at the end of last season,
I was hopeful that the new-MISL's desire to join US Soccer would help
convince the former NPSL clubs to return the game to traditional
scoring.

The new-MISL's competition committee, made up of team coaches and
general managers, as well as league officials voted 14-1 in favor of a
single point scoring system. Imagine the shock I, and other indoor fans
experienced when the league owners voted 5-3 (with one exception, along
"party lines") to retain the "multi-point" scoring system (MPS).

I had two choices

1) accept that the former NPSL owners were willing to compromise on
every single issue except the scoring system (whereas the former WISL,
CISL, original MISL owners were willing to discus everything but the
scoring system) and continue to be a fan, or

2) Say to He&! with it and walk away from my favorite sport of now 18
years.


I decided on the former.


I got my first taste of multi-point scoring today. It took me 2 hours to
create the box score of today's match due to all of the situations that
required footnotes to explain (7 in all). I also discovered to my horror
that the change to my beloved game was not as simple as "divide what's
on the scoreboard by 2 and get the real score). Definitions of
foundational issues such as Game Winning Goal, and which goalkeeper
receives the credit for the win or loss have now changed. Examples:


1) With the goal count 1-0 (and the score 2-0), Dino Delevski scores a 3
point goal (score 5-0).
2) Goran Hunjak scored for Kansas City after Dallas tied the Goal Count
at 2 (score 5-4) to put the Comets ahead 3-2 in goals (score 7-4).

Q: Who gets the Game Winning Goal?
A: Under traditional scoring, one does not have to think about it.
Hunjak gets the GWG. Under MPS, Delevski's goal (the 2nd of the game for
KC) is considered the GWG.

3) Sagu, serving his own penalty (which I now concede is a bad idea), is
not in the Net for #2 above. Steve Rose, a "won't make the team backup"
was. 


Q: Rose, who was the Goalkeeper of Record for Goal #3, gets the Loss,
right?
A: No. Sagu does because the 2nd goal was a 3 pointer.



Although I am glad that indoor soccer finally has one united league for
the first time since 1989 (when the AISA abandoned it's "developmental
league" role and began active competition with the original MISL and
it's successors), I find myself disturbed by just how much MPS changes
the game.

I tell people to try indoor soccer once. People who do have one of two
reactions: they love it and come back, or hate it and never return. I
have tried a game played under MPS. I dislike it with a renewed passion
now that I realize that it changes the game down to the core. 


The players are the same, and the game play was mostly the same (and,
thanks to the Owners betrayal, played under mostly CISL/WISL rules
except for the scoring system). It is only now when reading the box
score that I see just how huge the differences are. I hope that next
season the owners will see reason and get rid of this abomination for
good, so that the 2002-03 season can be an *- in the all-time history of
the sport.


Intelligent discussion is welcomed. Flames or accusations that I thought
Bill Clinton not guilty in the Impeachment matters will be cheerfully
ignored.



Alan Balthrop
Webmaster/Historian
Dallas Sidekicks Historical Archive
http://www.kicksfan.com
alan@kicksfan.com



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