MLS has a revolutionary rule to reduce wasted time. Lionel Messi exposed his main flaw

Lionel Messi has been kicked and beaten, twisted and tackled, bruised and beaten thousands of times throughout his career, and almost every time, after wincing and twitching, and then leaving the field, the rules of football have eagerly welcomed him back. return to battle.

He was treated by trainers in Spain and South America. He was left limping on four different continents. Whenever he is ready, the referees wave him back onto the field, as per standard protocol.

But on Saturday night in Montreal, after being fouled, Messi limped straight into the mouth of a groundbreaking new rule in Major League Soccer.

That kept him sidelined for the next two minutes, and as he waited, watching his Inter Miami team play 10-11, he turned to a fieldside camera and microphone, visibly frustrated. “With this kind of rule,” he he said in Spanish, roughly, “we are going in a bad direction.”

The rule, however, is already serving its intended purpose.

MLS created this because for decades, in hundreds of leagues around the world, players have abused standard protocol to waste time. They exaggerated or faked injuries when they led by a goal or two. They consumed precious minutes through tortuous means, without repercussions. They were apparently the reason why the average MLS game featured more than five injury-related stoppages of more than 15 seconds – even though only 8% of those stoppages resulted in a substitution.

The league’s response: The so-called “off-field treatment rule,” which, with some exceptions, states that “if… [a] player remains on the ground for more than 15 seconds and the medical team enters the field of play, the player may be required to leave the field of play for two minutes.”

The initial result: fewer than two shutouts per game since the rule’s implementation on April 20 — 1.77 in the first three weeks, down from about 5.25 previously, according to league data.

The data, however, did not suppress an eruption of speeches and criticism when Messi expressed his opinion. Some of the criticism echoed previous concerns expressed by coaches. Saturday’s incident appeared to highlight an oversight in rulemaking and an unfortunate side effect.

“The team that was fouled was punished,” Miami coach Tata Martino said after the game. “With these new changes to the rules, there are situations that must be reviewed.”

Off-field treatment rule working as expected

The rules first took shape in 2022, when an MLS “on-field innovation committee” took aim at the downfall of soccer purists, the waste of time. After extensive consultations – with referees and owners, with athletic directors and “doctors” – league officials refined two semi-revolutionary ideas for curing the disease.

One rule was aimed at substitutions – a player must leave the field within 10 seconds when substituted, or else his replacement will have to wait 60 seconds to enter.

The other targeted injury simulation – and it was much more complicated.

“The goal,” MLS executive Ali Curtis said of both, was “to reduce avoidable game delays and reduce gambling.” But the off-field treatment rule required a lot of nuance, because real injuries are a very real part of football and often indistinguishable from fake injuries.

Therefore, they created certain exceptions, including for serious medical events. They decided to treat head and brain injuries separately. They chose to exempt any player who received a foul that generated a yellow or red card. They also exempted the goalkeepers.

In all of these cases, a player may re-enter after receiving medical clearance.

But otherwise, he would have to fight through the pain or call a sports trainer and lose at least two minutes.

MLS piloted rules in its reserve league, MLS Next Pro, in 2022 and 2023, and “I felt really, really good about the [resulting] data,” Curtis said. According to this data, injury stoppages of more than 15 seconds fell from 6.0 per game without the rule in 2022 to 1.22 in 2023.

And of those 1.22, 1.04 were exceptions. Just 0.17 stoppages per game met the criteria for the “off-field treatment rule” – meaning players were only forced to sit for two minutes once every six games. In MLS, over three weeks, the equivalent rate was very similar: 0.16.

And the decrease in stoppages, it seems, was explained, at least in part, by less simulation. Before the rule, in MLS Next Pro, 8% of the stoppages in question led to a substitution. With the end of most of these shutdowns, the replacement rate rose to 38%.

Still, however, concerns persisted. The rule gives players a clear incentive to play through pain so as to avoid something resembling a hockey-style two-minute power play. It can also reward applicators.

Curtis, speaking to reporters before the season, acknowledged these potential side effects. “One of the concerns we talked about was whether or not this would make the game more brutal,” he said. “Would a team deliberately try to injure an opponent to gain an advantage where they would be with a man?”

His response then was the exception for fouls with yellow and red cards.

Part of the league’s response now – implicitly, in data sent to Yahoo Sports on Sunday – is that foul and yellow card rates were actually lower in the first three weeks under the new rule than they were in the first nine weeks of the season, while Red card rates were flat. (Part of the slight drop – from 25.88 fouls to 24.07 and 4.61 yellows to 4.38 – may be due to the change of substitute referees for the regular league teams.)

MLS willing to innovate and listen

Concerns, however, resurfaced when Messi fell on Saturday night and writhed in pain. Montreal’s George Campbell hit his leg in the 40th minute. Messi rolled twice and then grabbed his knee, which was almost hyperextended. He put his forearm to his forehead. He hid his eyes and his agony. He threw his head back and grimaced toward the sky. He was clearly hurt, not faking it.

But referee Drew Fischer did not show Campbell a yellow card.

Then, when Messi finally got up and reached the touchline, an assistant referee showed two fingers to confirm: Messiessentially, he would be the one penalized.

This is an unintended and inappropriate consequence of the rule. But it probably won’t stop MLS, because this isn’t a rule designed to accommodate players; it was designed to accommodate fans and make games more watchable. It’s an exchange.

It is also malleable. “Of course, if there is an unintended consequence that we could not foresee and that had the perverse effect of compromising the health and safety of players, for example, we have to look into that immediately,” MLS executive Nelson Rodriguez said earlier of the season.

But they probably wouldn’t abandon the rule. A first step, sometime this year or next, could be an adjustment or change. A simple change, for example, could have avoided Messi’s scenario. No player in a regular season game – with the possible exception of the final day of the season – would try to waste time wasting time. So why should a team that gave up two goals, as happened Saturday in Miami, be subject to the rule? Wouldn’t this be another sensible, if imperfect, exemption?

This will certainly be considered. In general, league officials have signaled a willingness to innovate and change — and to listen.

“It’s really trying to think about the feedback that we get, not just from fans, but also from players, from coaches, about what’s going on in the sports landscape,” Curtis said. “We try to be connected to all parts of the ecosystem, fans being one of them, so that we can continue to look at our game and look for solutions.”