Triangular Football

I haven’t posted anything recently because I have had very little I wanted to say. Besides, the times are so incomprehensible and bizarre that little can be said, especially on a platform controlled by Google.

However, the other day I was looking through some old files and came across a proposal I made in 2003 to Sky TV for a new sport – Triangular Football. They turned it down, of course, but I still like the idea and am putting it out here in case anyone else does.

Object and Draft Rules

The game is played between three teams of six players. Each team comprises a goalkeeper, left back, right back, left forward, centre forward, and right forward.

The pitch in plan is equilaterally triangular. Each side of the triangle is 100 metres long. The centre circle has a radius of 9 metres; each apex of the triangle is divided into a penalty area 22 metres across, within which is the goal-mouth, 8 metres across. The goal crossbar is 8 feet high, as in Association Football. Each team’s sector extends from its goal-mouth to the centre of the triangle and from the centre of the triangle to points halfway along each of the two enclosing touchlines.

The object is not only to score goals but also to minimise the number of goals scored against your team. Each goal scored earns half a point, but each goal admitted loses your team one full point. It is thus possible to emerge from a match with a negative score.

The game lasts for 90 minutes, divided into three periods of 30 minutes. Between each period is an interval of 10 minutes. After each interval teams change sectors, rotating clockwise. The sector occupied by any team is decided beforehand by drawing lots. The three teams are thus placed in sequence, A, B, and C. Lots are also drawn to decide which team kicks off first.

A standard soccer ball is used, kicked off from the centre spot. At kickoff all opposing players must be outside the centre circle and in their own sectors. The ball must travel at least its own circumference into an opposing sector, and the kicker may not play it again until it has done so. Subsequent kickoffs (after each goal or period) are taken by the next team in the sequence.

Only the goalkeeper may handle (but not carry) the ball, and then only within the penalty area. If the ball crosses the touchline it is deemed to have been put out of play and is thrown in by a member of the next team. (The ‘next’ team would be Team B if a member of Team A had put it out, Team C if a member of Team B had put it out, and Team A if a member of Team C had put it out.) If the ball is put out of play by being kicked over the crossbar, the goalkeeper takes possession and may throw or kick it back into play from anywhere inside his penalty area.

The game is controlled by a referee and three linesmen, who may signal infringements to the referee, though the referee is under no obligation to act on such signals.

Infringements are penalised by free kicks, which may be ‘direct’ or ‘indirect’. Direct free kicks, from which a goal may be scored, follow deliberate or major infringements, and indirect free kicks, from which a goal may not be scored, for lesser infringements. Offences by defenders in the penalty area are generally penalised by a penalty shot from anywhere along the penalty line, with only the goalkeeper in the penalty area: the goalkeeper is barred from moving until the ball has been kicked. Minor offences by the defending team in their penalty area are penalised only by an indirect free kick. There is no offside rule.

No extra time or injury time is permitted unless all three captains agree to it, in which case there may be another 15 minutes of play. If the game is not resolved at the end of ordinary or extra time it will be decided on penalties.

Tactics

The fact that three teams, not two, are in contention completely transforms the nature of the game. Like other sports involving two teams, conventional soccer has been called a metaphor for warfare (or a sublimation of it). Triangular soccer is a more apt expression of this in the 21st Century, when strategic alliances, mind-games and the application of overwhelming force are becoming the currency of international relations. [How prescient was that, in 2003?]

Team A and Team B might choose to gang up on Team C but, because only the team of the scoring player benefits from the half-point awarded for the goal, there will be fierce competition in the goalmouth between Teams A and B.

However, if A and B agree to share the points by alternating scorers, a stage will soon be reached where C has no apparent chance of winning the game. Now focus switches to the competition between A and B – a competition during which C may be able to recoup its position by scoring, or by abetting one team or hindering another. During such tactics, A and B are of course free to gain further half-points by scoring against C; but while doing so they will leave their ends only lightly defended.

As the score develops, A or B may decide to combine with C. In so doing it will risk C becoming a rival. Alliances will be in a constant state of flux. This alone will make the game more compelling than two-team soccer.

The shape of the pitch, funnelling every attack, will call for increasing precision of play as the goalmouth is approached; yet the lack of an offside rule will lead to furious and treacherous action in the penalty area, where as many as ten attackers could be ranged against six defenders. And, if none of the attacking players are in their own sectors they run the risk of a lightning, pitch-length attack from the defending team – which could go either left or right.

More goals will be scored than in conventional soccer, and play will be faster and on occasion very funny.

The changing alliances during a game will also be affected by the relative positions of the three teams within the league, which will in turn make the league itself both more precarious and more interesting to follow, with much anticipation in the media of possible tactics for forthcoming matches. This will improve ratings.

With only six players, a triangular soccer team will have a more evident personality than a conventional team. Analysis can be deeper and more amusing, which will increase yet further the game’s appeal to a TV audience; and the reduced periods of play (30 minutes as opposed to 45) will allow more ads to be screened.