Want Higher Soccer Scores?

Everyone, they speculate, would be dying to watch professional and college soccer in america if only the game begat more of that thrilling calibratory scoring. Higher scores! they say as though the real demand were not Higher ratings!

Well I have an answer. And it's a wonder no one thought of it sooner. When the offensive movements cease at the end of a soccer play, the present rules tend to reward the defense with ball possession. How about, rather than immediately turning the ball over, giving the offensive team four tries to get to the goal in whatever combination of pass attempts or breakaways they can manage, wile accumulating position accumulating on the field. At each stopped ball, whether boundary violation or stalemate, until the fateful fourth attempt, give the ball back to the offense. Teach them persistence. But also teach them the stakes should they lose that possession, afforded four tries. They suffer four full uninterrupted tries by the other team, a particularly impossible and humiliating assignment.

Should this suggestion not fulfill the scoring demands, there are happily many further adjustments available that might add the the accumulated scores of both teams and thus, advertising revenue:

1. Increase scoring reward. Instead of one point a goal, offer five or six.
2. Expand the goal. Take an example from Rugby. Allow players to score by simply diving over the endline.
2(a). Since an endline-wide goal would make airborne kicks exponentially easier, goals scored through the air would only count within the designated boundaries as usual. But shucks the offense deserves a chance to get between the posts without an upper limit or any one getting in the way of the ball. So get rid of the crossbar and raise the goal higher than a man can leap. Since this is only a half advantage, give the score a three.
3. Interceptions still count as turnovers. But players who achieve them must instantly leave the field.
4. As an added incentive for crossing the endline (and promoting higher scoring), offer an extra point for a kicking exhibition after the score.

O wait! That's football. Well I hear it's big in Europe. Let's give football a chance.