Christian Pulisic Says To Make Goals Worth 7 Points To Fix Soccer

Christian Pulisic may be one of the best American soccer players the country's ever developed, and he hears the criticism from his countrymen over soccer's low scoring reputation.

His plan to fix it however, may be a bit more tongue in cheek than actually effective. Especially coming from someone's who played his career at the highest levels of European competition.

Pulisic reportedly gave his thoughts on how to improve soccer for American audiences, saying he has a quick and easy way on how to improve scoring.

"Make the goals worth seven points," Pulisic said. "More people would watch it. Apparently it's so low scoring, it's boring. Make the points worth more. It's perfect. Then games can finish 21-7 and everyone will be happy, Americans especially."

Does he have a point?

AL KHOR, QATAR - NOVEMBER 25: Christian Pulisic of United States of America reacts during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Group B match between England and USA at Al Bayt Stadium on November 25, 2022 in Al Khor, Qatar. (Photo by Juan Luis Diaz/Quality Sport Images/Getty Images)

Pulisic Identifies Key Problem With Soccer Compared To NFL

While he was obviously joking about how to make soccer less boring, there's a bit of truth to what Pulisic is saying.

Many NFL games are brutally boring, with defenses dominating hapless quarterbacks, sloppy turnovers and endless penalties. Just as one example, the Titans and Saints played a 16-15 game on Sunday with 13 combined penalties, five combined turnovers, abysmal per play averages. The Cardinals and Commanders both averaged under four yards per play in a game with 20 penalties and nine sacks allowed.

Browns-Bengals had two touchdowns scored, not dissimilar to a soccer match that finishes 1-1.

But no one is calling for the NFL to overhaul itself to make games more exciting. Presumably because *something* is happening on every play. Even if that something is painful to watch. Even still though, research has shown that there's approximately 11 minutes of total action in NFL games, which now average roughly 3 hours and 12 minutes in length and feature at least 100 commercials.

That same research showed that an average of 75 minutes of broadcast time was spent watching coaches and players stand around on the field. Thrilling.

Soccer has a reputation as boring because scores are consistently low. But there's endless action involved through passes, dribbling and build up of play. Even if the scoring stays low. And thanks to a running clock, there's no commercials during the game, making for 45+ minutes of consecutive action each half.

Americans have been conditioned to view soccer as boring though, especially because few if any grew up watching it. And so they do. The sport would obviously never take Pulisic's suggestion, but it'd be a fascinating experiment to see how quickly opinions would change if the scorelines reflected higher numbers.

Oh, and if people decided they wanted to gamble on soccer too.