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Comment by Dma54rhs | Hacker News Reader

There's a little box inside penalty box in soccer where the goalkeeper has by the rules relative freedom to do whatever he wants for his own safety in soccer as well. Also similarly to crowding the goalie in hockey, own players sometimes build another wall to keep the view of the ball from goalkeeper. Haven't watched NHL for a decade but it seems all the sports constantly evolve to take maximums from situations.

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> a little box inside penalty box in soccer where the goalkeeper has by the rules

It's not an official rule, but it is the common interpretation, to the point of players relying on this in competitive matches.

Another change that makes it easier for goalkeepers to defend in soccer was calling offside when a player is in offside position and doesn't receive the ball, just obstructs the visibility or messes with defenders and somebody else (not in offside position) score thanks to that.

It's a little inconsistent and I don't like it, but it doesn't seem to help the defenders and goalies too much.

Despite the rule changes in soccer goalies seem to be losing the arms race - there's more and more goals a game and last few years the meta moved to very high pressing and constant offence. Which I very much like - makes for a more entertaining games.

As for hockey I would like them to split the goal into 2 halves and put them 1 meter apart :)

> there's more and more goals a game

So it sucks to be a goalkeeper and I sympathise with anyone tasked with organising the defence when faced with this trend. But for us fans this is quite good news :-)

I have never heard of these rules regarding the six-yard box in football. As far as I am aware it is only for positioning your goal kicks and something to do with indirect free kicks (a rare occurrence) where they can't be inside that box. I'm sure the keeper does mess around with people in that area, but I don't think it's their right as codified in any rules of the game

Yeah, I was mistaken, these are not real rules as written down. But you can often hear commentators talking about it and keepers are being trained to protect themselves in that area. They recently changed the rule that you can touch the keeper in that area (eg. during the corners etc). Around 2006, before it was not allowed. Any body contact, but keepers knowing it was not allowed for the attackers to have proper body contact with them and they kinda hacked the rule often and were fishing them or looking for the contact.

This may be particular to non-British football coverage, because this is all entirely alien to me and I've never heard this ever. It would make sense though, when I played I would definitely fuck around with the keeper during set pieces in the box, and they'd either fight back or a burly defender would be dispatched to keep me busy :-D

I played at fairly high level as a GK (you have to take a word for random guy on HN out of all places saying it) and it was common knowledge or something that was being taught from young age at higher levels. Maybe I just thought sort of everyone knows it and pay for attention when I hear commentators /studio talking about it. But you can think of it how many penalties, or rather fouls against keeper, they give when keeper jumps into someone inside the six yard box - I don't have statistics at hand but bet tons of money 6 yard box vs penalty area.

The goal in football/soccer is a bit larger than in hockey.

If you’re going to bring that up, we could talk about the hows and whys of the NBA not allowing goaltending.

Have you ever noticed that one player just can’t jump up and sit in the goal for the whole of the game?

It’s rather small, so the game then would be about who could remove the man from the area above the basket.

Perhaps we could just make the goalie have to stay away from the crease in the NHL and wear something similar to that which everyone else wears? (Unfortunately, there are a number of good reasons things are the way they are[1].)

[1]- https://hockeyanswered.com/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-goalie...

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