And it would be nice to know precisely when the game is going to end. Not knowing that is lame.
You don't know that about American rules football (3-4 hours), baseball (2.5-5+ hours), lacrosse, ice hockey or tennis either.
The NASL did what you're hinting at. They had the clock count down from 45:00 to 0:00. Whenever the referee stopped the game for an injury he'd use the American football referee signal to stop the clock which would indicate to the clock operator that the countdown clock should be stopped. It was hokey.
They also tried some other things:
1. They added a 35-yard line to the field at each end. This line was placed 35 yards from the goal line. A player was could not be offside if he was outside the 35-yard line instead of having to be on his own half as in the rest of the world. Their theory was that with attackers being closer to the opposing goal that there would be more scoring. In the end, all it did was cause players to hang out around that line and virtually eliminate the long break-away passes that can be an exciting part of the game.
2. (you'll like this one) there were no tie games... there was a sudden death overtime (either 2 short periods or one 15-minute period -- my memory is failing me here). If the game was still tied after OT there would be a shootout to determine the winner. The process was similar as the traditional shoutout (5 for each team followed by 1 each until a winner was determined) with the exception that the shooter started at the 35-yard line and had only 5 seconds to dribble in and get a shot off.
3. The standings were also different. Back then most of the world used 2 points for a win and 1 point for a tie. Today the practice is to award 3 points for a win and 1 point for a tie. The NASL awarded 6 points for a win in regulation and 3 points for a shootout loss (I believe) there were other point values for winning/losing in OT vs. the shootout, etc.. Additionally they awarded points for goals scored for the first 3 goals (I believe it was 1 pt for the first, 2 pts for the second and 3 for the third). It was a bit over-complicated.
They also contemplated changing the size of the goal, shortening the game to 70:00 with clock stoppages when the ball went out of bounds, etc.. These latter ideas were never implemented.
As you can imagine, FIFA was less than amused. They allowed the 3 rules above as an experiment but considered the NASL as somewhat of a rebel. This irritation was the primary reason for the US not being awarded the 1986 World Cup after it was deemed that Colombia was not prepared to host it.
About the only thing that the NASL did that eventually made it to the rest of the world was the increase in the number of allowed substitutions from 2 to 3.
While I enjoyed the NASL, and lived it as a teenager, it was a bit odd. It was the only league in the US so you went with it. It was always a good time at an aging 20,000 seat Holleder stadium when the Cosmos came to town. As I've indicated, it was a great way for me to meet a lot of Dutch stars who played in the NASL as part of their retirement process. I've still got a nice scrapbook from back in the day.
