I've thought for some time about the possibility of getting rid of the wall in free kicks. I've had players suffer damage to teeth and painful incidents of free kicks hitting heads of players standing in walls.

I've sometimes wondered if the game would be better if it was a contest between the player shooting from range and the keeper, with no wall.

Thoughts?

Edited by Decentric: 2/3/2015 10:26:42 AM

I'm not sure i like that. If the concern is that great, then maybe just move the wall back another 5 yards.

Why not just ditch the wall so the GK has a clear line to come in and take the ball?

-PB

From 35-40 yards... Yes

from 18-20... hell no!

This is what I've thought.

If it increases the probability of scoring for broth teams, then I can see it is a good thing. Some keepers might be more comfortable having a direct line of sight to the ball than peering through a wall.

Also, sometimes players miss, or have shots saved, from the 11 metre spot in penalties. So surely they will convert less from free kicks devoid of walls from 20 metres plus?

How do you police not having a wall? People must stand 30CM apart?

That was my line of thinking as well Decentric.

The amount of times balls have gone into the wall at a fairly long range, you could argue were either a) not on target anyway or b) more than savable by a GK on his line with a clear line of view.

EDIT: Of course we are talking in hypothetical here.

-PB

Edited by paulbagzFC: 2/3/2015 10:47:06 AM

which players have been hurt in walls?

Are players allowed to protect their face/genitals with their hands in the wall. I think players are allowed to do this, provided they don't move their hand away from their body. Or allow players to put mouth guards in for walls.

If you removed the wall, a hell of a lot more goals would be scored. For free-kicks close to the box, it would almost be like a penalty.

Some I've coached and from other teams playing them have been hurt.

I've seen NPL players hurt too.

Players are allowed to protect their groin.

Imagine someone like Bosnar being told there's no such things as walls anymore :lol:

That guy has a cannon shot.

Definitely not safe standing in a wall with Eddie shooting.

The long and the short is that if it's that big an issue, the wall should be moved back to 15 yards. That'll give players that extra split second to react.

that'll be interesting when you have a free-kick just outside the 18 yard box, if the wall has to be 15 yards away everyone else will have to as well. As for your eddy bosnars it doesn't matter if your 10 yards away or 20 yards away only advantage would be you have slightly more time to see it, has no-one noticed his free kick that was still accelerating when it hit the back of the net from 30 yards

Yeah, but you'll never be able to remove risk, you can only minimize it. Removing the wall just isn't an option really.
Impossible to police the banning of walls.

Sorry for the science lesson, but there is no possible way that a ball could still be accelerating after it has been kicked. It could only be accelerating if a net external force was still being applied to the ball. The moment it is kicked is when it is travelling at its maximum speed. It slows down as it goes along. If the wall is moved back a few yards then the ball will be travelling at a slower speed when it gets there.

thats ok, it's been a while since high school science and I've never had to use it that much standing in front of the french fry station, lets just say the ball had still not reached its downward trajectory yet, what about momentum?

Edited by spfc: 2/3/2015 05:52:54 PM

Happened in the game I went to last weekend. The fella was hit in the temple and took a while to shake off the knock.