Could we ever see football go to 4 quarters – Part 2
4 quarters of football brings other negative impacts aside from the one I mentioned in my last post. Namely a more closed game. By giving player more and more time to rest it enables them to recover both physically and mentally. This means that they can get their concentration back meaning that fewer and fewer mistakes are being made because players are not suffering from fatigue. This then leads to less goals. Its already hard enough to score goals as it is, let’s not make it any harder.
I would also wonder what sort of impact that would have on substitutions. Generally speaking, you sub players for two reasons. They are tired, or you are changing something tactically. If you have more breaks you would take away one of those reasons. Players being tired. Now I’m not saying that players will fully recover in 10 mins after running around on a field they will still get tired. But not to the extent that they normally would. This would mean that substitutes would almost be reserved for tactical changes and injuries. This may limit the opportunities of those players to play unless the right circumstance arises. The impact of a fresh player as well would be weakened. There is nothing worse in a match than marking a player who does not stop running, finally gets tired and then gets substituted for someone completely fresh. But if you have the game in quarters, then players recover and someone coming on at the start of the 4th quarter would have a lesser impact then the same player coming on in the 35th minute of a second half. At least from a physical point of view.
This would also restrict the opportunity for youth players. Youth players who rise through an academy system very rarely start straight away. They usually start from the bench and then are slowly introduced into the senior team assuming that they are good enough. Young players are also usually the ones who go on in place of tired players as they are in most circumstances pacey, agile and quick. By going to 4 quarters I think it would close the game up and teams would have to rely on the skill of their players and coaches in order to get the win as opposed to a tired opposition. I also think that it will limit the opportunities given to substitutes especially youth players who go on to gain valuable experience at the end of matches when players are tired.