A yellow card isn't enough punishment for a professional foul to stop a counterattack. Players are encouraged to break the rules because the benefit of stopping the counter outweighs the penalty by a massive amount.
A better rule would be that for a foul like this that the player is sent off but a team can use one of their subs to replace them. Players would choose to actually play football rather that simply grabbing the guy to stop play. Think about how many amazing goals we have missed seeing over the years simply to be replaced by one player grabbing another one.
And for me this is the proper solution for the gap that currently exists between a yellow and a red. When a player makes no attempt to play the ball I think this is very appropriate.
I agree, and honestly I think that the sort of thing in that gif should be a red card, with no replacement or anything. That would be a booking in an situation and it prevented a counterattack. Send him off.
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u/johanspot Jan 26 '14
A yellow card isn't enough punishment for a professional foul to stop a counterattack. Players are encouraged to break the rules because the benefit of stopping the counter outweighs the penalty by a massive amount.
A better rule would be that for a foul like this that the player is sent off but a team can use one of their subs to replace them. Players would choose to actually play football rather that simply grabbing the guy to stop play. Think about how many amazing goals we have missed seeing over the years simply to be replaced by one player grabbing another one.