Brain injury expert calls for ban on heading in football

To be fair, apart from in the penalty box, it is not really necessary

Good flick

He only wants a ban on heading for those under 18. Which is good news for Tony Pulis and his head tennis tactics.

If it was implemented, at a high level you’d probably get managers reluctant to play under 18s and at youth level, from free kicks and corners, we’d probably see an increase in bicycle kicks!

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I wonder if football would be better if there was no heading. If you think about it, it does seem like quite a random thing to be part of the sport.

It might help the asthetics and encourange a different style of defender.

I guess it may become impossible to break down a parked bus though.

Parked bus would be difficult because now they can’t just head it away. They have to have a duel to compete & chest/drop the ball & kick away.
There will be less head injuries among footballers but more heart attacks among supporters.

Will simply never happen. Took 10+ years of the technology being available before they allowed it to determine if a ball crossed a line or not. Having to basically reinvent the way the game is played after 150 years…they won’t do it.

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One of Arsenal’s biggest problems around 2011 ish was just teams stacking the box and us being unable to pass through them and us having no real options to win a header. If you can no longer throw on Fellaini and hope that he wins a knockdown header for his little mate what can attackers do against 9 bodies in the box?

Think the professionals will still be allowed to head it, but in the kids levels not so much, which should be fine no?

Would also pretty much eliminate your traditional corner routine (end up with short corners always I think), which would be nice. England would be fucked though.

It’s not that radical of an idea, tbh, in futsal headers are basically not a part of the game and the play is better for it. Would be totally doable and certainly have a positive effect on the sport but then the lover of tradition and history in me, the same one that loves the forum traditions of our beloved, our shining light LondresTopo and our great forum curator @Luca_from_Italy, makes me feel rather conflicted about just changing fundamentally the sport after over a century of play.

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It’s probably not fine if you’re an 18 year old centre back or centre forward trying to break into a professional team and you’ve never headed it. You’d have basically zero meaningful experience of attacking or defending set pieces too since they would be completely different in a no-heading environment.

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Tagging me on this? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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Or everyone under the age of 18 must wear a helmet a lá Cech?

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I think he just secretly has a man crush on you Luca he just wanted your attention :giroud:

Watching the world burn is preferring to have a marginal part of the sport (headed goals from set-pieces) continue to be a major factor in who wins major tournaments (CLs, World Cups) :wink:

Mav, interesting and witty as always :wink:

Yeah, Spain is famous for these things :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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Short corners are and always will be wasteful bollocks. I’d rather see corners abolished than watch a game where only short ones existed.

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I mean yeah, that’d be fine. Short corners are just a way of retaining possession in an advanced/relatively dangerous position; there’s nothing really wasteful about that, it’s a viable strategy especially if you’re not a great threat from traditional corners. So yeah, even if you did abolish corners, what you’d get is basically the same, a throw in from the corner, ie a short corner.

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As a kid the only reason I got into my school team was because I was good in the air and I’d put my head in front of anything.

This rule would basically be racist against people like me with no discernable talent, you can’t discriminate like that man.

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