FIFA’s Chief officer for technical development Marco van Basten spoke to the NOS about looking at potential changes to the sport whilst viewing a special friendly game in the Netherlands to test potential ideas.
- By James Rowe
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A friendly match between FC Lisse and Quick Boys was used as an experiment to try out some changes to the game including self-pass and intrap. Self-pass allows a team to restart play immediately after a stoppage instead of having to wait for the referee’s whistle, while intrap would replace throw in’s, with teams allowed to kick the ball from the sidelines. Both changes are being trialled to see if they can speed up the tempo of games.
van Basten said, ”Football has been reasonably taken care of in recent years but you must always look to see if you can improve things in football. We have to look and implement certain tests to see if the game can become even better in the future.
”If you take for example the idea of a self pass you notice that the game accelerates in terms of the pace of the game. But you must also not forget that we are testing these ideas out in friendly games.
”Naturally, these potential adjustments will be different in terms of games where pressure is involved and we also have to take into account how players react to that in those types of situations.”
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