New Year's Revolution: Buffon thinks we should shrink the goalpost!?

Football is going through a phase of significant re-evaluation and, subsequently, evolution. For decades, there have been no innovations regarding the basic rules, competition format, etc...

However, in the 21st century, everything has come under scrutiny.

Increasing sums of money are circulating, more and more are being spent, and the demands are growing. Therefore, we are witnessing the Champions League revision, the launch of the Super League, and the creation of teams worth billions of euros.

In order to make football as attractive as possible, the legendary Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon gave an intriguing, almost revolutionary proposal. And what he said would hardly be accepted and supported by his colleagues.

"We could think about increasing the size of the goalpost. When I started defending in 1998, I was among the five tallest players in Serie A. Last year in Parma, I was also among the five tallest, but out of 22 players on the field," explained Buffon.

And he really advocates for something to change there.

"The dimensions of the goals have been the same since 1875, when they may have been too big. In the next 50-60 years, they were adequate, and now when you see how some goalkeepers and players look, you can't help but think there's a need for change."

Buffon added some more to it...

"How today's goalkeepers affect games is best seen with shots from distance. Some 30 years ago, ten out of 50 shots ended up in the net. Today, if two or three come in, that's too much. It became very difficult to score a goal past the 6.5-foot-tall goalkeeper," the former Italy international pointed out.

The dimensions of the goalpost are 7.32 meters in width and 2.44 meters in height, and they have been officially that way since 1886. And nothing about that has changed since then. As for goalkeepers, almost the only change that has occurred in their part of the 'job' is that, since 1992, they have been prohibited from catching the ball with their hands when a teammate deliberately returns it to them with their foot.