From the article: UEFA have been working for 5 years to find solutions to increase ball in play time; their solution: "We tell our referees to speed up the restart of play instead of focusing on stoppage time." Really? 5 whole years to come up with that? I could come up with something better after 5 minutes and a few pints.
UEFA will not extend stoppage time
- Thread starter Mr Dean
- Start date
From the article: UEFA have been working for 5 years to find solutions to increase ball in play time; their solution: "We tell our referees to speed up the restart of play instead of focusing on stoppage time." Really? 5 whole years to come up with that? I could come up with something better after 5 minutes and a few pints.
They must be doing something right though as average ball in play time is over 60 minutes in UCL.
Source:
Great to know the approach to 'time lost for stoppages' is consistent (like everything else
)
Better quality teams who are better matched, not many Burnley's and Stokes in UCL
Exactly that, you are less likely to get teams deploying the dark arts and generally the teams are better grouped together quality wise. Plus if you have, for example (and topically), Young Boys in a group with Man City and RB Leipzig. They know they aren't getting out of it, and more importantly they can't be relegated, so they'll often go and have a go rather than digging in.
Worth pointing out that clicking through the article, the original source of this 60 minute figure appears to be UEFA themselves. Hardly the most independent source. It's also not stated whether matches which went to extra time are included in the data.
In the 2021-22 season, the average ball in play time in the Champions League was 56 minutes 54 seconds not including extra time. This was 1 minute 51 seconds more than the Premier League. (Source)
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