Originally Posted by
Mal
Among the criticisms I have of futbol, clock wasting at the end of a game is way down the list. Not a big deal. I don't know whether the analogy above holds, however, because no other sport has a continuously running clock. If it were the case that the clock stopped when the ball went over the end line and didn't start again until the goalkeeper took his free kick and put it back in play, that would be different. As it is, however, a stalling team can change the guy taking the inbounds pass, ask for a different ball, overplay the tumble after being fouled, walk to the free kick spot instead of jog, etc., all while the clock is moving. There's not really an equivalent to that in basketball or football or hockey, where either the game is live and the clock's running, or the ball/puck is dead and the clock's stopped. There is a qualitative difference between delays that seek to prevent the game from actually being played while the clock runs, and those that seek to maximize the ticking off of time while the ball is in play. [To be clear, I have no issue whatsoever with playing keepaway, booting the ball far downfield or out of bounds or whatever else can happen in the run of play that intentionally burns time. I don't think that's what anyone else was alluding to, but I don't personally recall what it is the Mbappe did yesterday that seems to be the source of concern]
That said, soccer players can do that stuff outside the last few minutes of the game, too. It always takes several seconds for a team to retrieve the out of bounds ball and put it back into play, and guys lie around on the grass for 15 seconds after getting tripped up all the time. That running clock, no action happening time is just part of the game. As long as those things happening at the end of the game aren't killing an egregiously longer number of seconds than they do in the middle of the game, there's really not much to complain about. You wouldn't want a running clock when the ball goes out of bounds at 54 minutes, and then a stopping clock when the ball goes out of bounds in the 86th minute (a discrepancy in the treatment of time that, though I understand the policy behind it, bothers me about American football).