(no subject)
So, one thing that has surprised me more than almost anything else in this World Cup is how many people I knew that have mentioned that they've enjoyed or tried to enjoy what they've seen of the games, but were confused by some aspects of the game. More importantly, parts of the game that I've grown so accustomed to that it never occurred to me it might be an issue. So in an effort to help dispel confusion and (hopefully) make it a little easier to enjoy the game in general, and World Cup in specific, I've put together some of the most commonly asked questions I've heard.
(feel free to ask more; I'll do my best to answer. Apologies for typos, etc - this was kind of stream-of-consciousness.)
Q: I keep seeing people called for "off-sides". What does this mean?
A: The off-sides rules are probably the most complicated rules in the game, but the high-level explanation is this: If an attacking player is too far behind the last defender, s/he is considered off-sides and can't involve themselves in that play. This wiki article goes into more details, but that's the key point of it.
Q: What do the lines on the field mean?
A: Again, wikipedia has a really good explanation. The two most common questions are about the two boxes around the goal. The inner box denotes an area that the attacking team can't start a ball on a free kick. The outer box is the "penalty area" - fouls committed in this area are treated much more severely. This penalty area also demarcates the limits of where the goal keeper may handle the ball with their hands.
Q: Do defenders have to stay in back at all? Players seem to move all over the place.
A: All of the players are free to be wherever they want to be on the field, with a few exceptions (e.g.: You can't be closer than 10 yards from someone executing a free kick). Players routinely roam the length and width of the field as-needed by the situation. Most will try and stay to certain areas as defined by their role on the team, but even the goal keeper is free to go wherever they wish (though if they leave the penalty area they can no long use their hands).
Q: Why do they sometimes appear to intentionally kick it out of bounds or to an area with no one to receive?
A: Most of the answers to this question have to do with tactics. The most common example of this is committed by a defending player. One of the most important things a defender does is "clear the ball", that is, get it out of the proximity of the goal. They may choose to kick it out of bounds or just wildly to the far end of the field if the alternative is an attacker getting to close to the goal with the ball. When a ball going out of bounds does give them a throw-in (see below), it also gives the defending players a chance to regroup.
All that being said, never forget that these are humans and some are better than others - the player may have just fucked up.
Q:Why do they sometimes throw it in and some times kick it in when it goes out of bounds? Why does the goalkeeper sometimes get to kick it in after it goes out?
A: How a ball is reintroduced to the field depends on two factors:(1) where did it go out and (2) who touched it last.
Crossing the line at the end of the field by a defender: Corner kick
Crossing the line at the end of the field by an attacker: Goal kick
Crossing one of the side lines: a Throw in by the other team
Corner kicks are what they sound like, a kick from the nearest corner to where the ball went out. Goal kicks are when the goal keeper is allowed a free kick (no one should be near him). And a throw in is when a player can throw it into the field. There are no restrictions about how far or in what direction the entering ball must go. Corners are considered some of the most dangerous because it gives the attacker a chance to get a lot of attackers very close to the goal and to place a carefully considered kick into the goal area.
Q: How do substitutions work? If you go out,can you come back?
A: In normal play, each team is allowed three substitutions. These are used to replace tired or injured players. Once a player is sub'd, they can not come back. If you have a player removed due to injury, and are out of subs...tough, you get to play a man down. If one of your players gets red carded out, you may use subs to replace other players on the team, so as to adjust your tactics, but you can not replace that lost player - you are forced to play a man down (red cards are serious business - see below).
Q: What *is* the deal on those yellow/red cards?
A: Most mistakes in the game are treated as a simple foul. Grievous breaches of rules will result in a Caution (the Yellow Card). Especially grievous offenses, or accumulating two Yellows in one game, result in a Red Card. A player that gets Red Carded is immediately removed from play and must leave the field at once.
Examples of yellow card/cautionable offenses: Persistent fouling of another player, deliberate time-wasting, poor or unsafe challenges/tackles, etc. Red card offenses would include any serious, deliberate foul play or violent conduct, intentionally using your hands to stop what would have been a goal-scoring opportunity, and, of course, receiving two yellow cards (in a single match).
In most tournaments and leagues, receiving a red card also means that the player can not play in their next eligible game. The team is not required to play a man down, but they can not use that player.
Q: Why do they let it end in a tie? Isn't that kinda' lame?
A: In the early, so-called "group stages" of a tournament like the World Cup or the regular season games in the US or England, individual games are run in a round-robin schedule. Each time a team wins, they get 3 points; ties are worth 1 and a loss is worth nothing. At the end of the round-robin stage, the teams with the most points advance to the final stages. To use the U.S. team from this year's World Cup as an example: We tied England, tied Solvenia, and beat Algeria, so we received 1+1+3 points for a total of 5 points.
As I write this (friday afternoon, 25 June), the World Cup has just seen the last of the round-robin "group stage" games. Going forward, we enter the "knock out stage", a more traditional (to American eyes) single-elimination tournament. Each team will play another, and only one team will advance. If there is a tie at the end of regular play, an additional 30 minutes (in the form of two 15 minute halves) are played. If the game is still tied, each team will take a penalty kick against the other until the tie is broken. There are no 'golden goals' or sudden death.
Q: What's the deal with that 'extra' time at the end of the halves?
A: At the end of each half, a few minutes of additional time is added by the referee. This is to make up for lost time due to injuries, etc. This is normally referred to as "injury time" or "stoppage time", never "extra time" - extra time is what gets added to a tie game in the single-elimination phase.
World Cup Specifics:
Q: What happened with that "disallowed" U.S. goal? How is that fair?
A: Referees in soccer have a great deal of discretion on how they run the game. While they are subject to internal review by the league, they are not obligated to explain their decisions to the public. If a referee sees a foul being committed during the course of goal scoring, they may choose to disallow the goal (especially if the foul would have impacted the ability of the defender to defend against the shot). Likewise, referees will sometimes call "advantage play" - when one side is fouled, but as a result ends up in better position. In the of the U.S. goal versus Slovenia - the referee felt that something had happened during the shot that warranted the disallowing of the goal.
Now, on the many, many replays and different camera angles, it was quite clear that not only did none of the U.S. players do anything wrong, several of them were being aggressively fouled at the time. But it's important to note that the refs don't have the benefit of different camera angles, slow-mo replay, etc. so they have to go with what they can see.
Another theory that's been mentioned is that the ref' felt that the foul he called that resulted in the U.S. getting the shot-on-goal might have been a mistake. Apparently (citation required) some refs in the past have called a foul, but immediately realized they've made a mistake. To fix this, they permit the free kick but immediately blow their whistle and call off whatever resulted of it. These are, of course, all just theories. No one has come forward to declare anyone one way or another, however, the referee in question was immediately dropped from the tournament following a staff meeting the Monday after that game.
Q: What the f**k is that buzzing noise!?!
A: All countries have some slight variations in how they cheer for their team. England is famous for its singing, the U.S. love a good chant and "the wave". In Africa in the past decade or so, the vuvuzela has become the method of choice. It's a simple wood or animal horn wind instrument that (i'm told) can be quite lovely when played well. In the stadium however, what you're hearing is a cheap plastic version that just hurts. They can be extremely loud, reaching up to 120-130dB. (now imagine a stadium focusing 80,000 fans blasting those things...)
(feel free to ask more; I'll do my best to answer. Apologies for typos, etc - this was kind of stream-of-consciousness.)
Q: I keep seeing people called for "off-sides". What does this mean?
A: The off-sides rules are probably the most complicated rules in the game, but the high-level explanation is this: If an attacking player is too far behind the last defender, s/he is considered off-sides and can't involve themselves in that play. This wiki article goes into more details, but that's the key point of it.
Q: What do the lines on the field mean?
A: Again, wikipedia has a really good explanation. The two most common questions are about the two boxes around the goal. The inner box denotes an area that the attacking team can't start a ball on a free kick. The outer box is the "penalty area" - fouls committed in this area are treated much more severely. This penalty area also demarcates the limits of where the goal keeper may handle the ball with their hands.
Q: Do defenders have to stay in back at all? Players seem to move all over the place.
A: All of the players are free to be wherever they want to be on the field, with a few exceptions (e.g.: You can't be closer than 10 yards from someone executing a free kick). Players routinely roam the length and width of the field as-needed by the situation. Most will try and stay to certain areas as defined by their role on the team, but even the goal keeper is free to go wherever they wish (though if they leave the penalty area they can no long use their hands).
Q: Why do they sometimes appear to intentionally kick it out of bounds or to an area with no one to receive?
A: Most of the answers to this question have to do with tactics. The most common example of this is committed by a defending player. One of the most important things a defender does is "clear the ball", that is, get it out of the proximity of the goal. They may choose to kick it out of bounds or just wildly to the far end of the field if the alternative is an attacker getting to close to the goal with the ball. When a ball going out of bounds does give them a throw-in (see below), it also gives the defending players a chance to regroup.
All that being said, never forget that these are humans and some are better than others - the player may have just fucked up.
Q:Why do they sometimes throw it in and some times kick it in when it goes out of bounds? Why does the goalkeeper sometimes get to kick it in after it goes out?
A: How a ball is reintroduced to the field depends on two factors:(1) where did it go out and (2) who touched it last.
Crossing the line at the end of the field by a defender: Corner kick
Crossing the line at the end of the field by an attacker: Goal kick
Crossing one of the side lines: a Throw in by the other team
Corner kicks are what they sound like, a kick from the nearest corner to where the ball went out. Goal kicks are when the goal keeper is allowed a free kick (no one should be near him). And a throw in is when a player can throw it into the field. There are no restrictions about how far or in what direction the entering ball must go. Corners are considered some of the most dangerous because it gives the attacker a chance to get a lot of attackers very close to the goal and to place a carefully considered kick into the goal area.
Q: How do substitutions work? If you go out,can you come back?
A: In normal play, each team is allowed three substitutions. These are used to replace tired or injured players. Once a player is sub'd, they can not come back. If you have a player removed due to injury, and are out of subs...tough, you get to play a man down. If one of your players gets red carded out, you may use subs to replace other players on the team, so as to adjust your tactics, but you can not replace that lost player - you are forced to play a man down (red cards are serious business - see below).
Q: What *is* the deal on those yellow/red cards?
A: Most mistakes in the game are treated as a simple foul. Grievous breaches of rules will result in a Caution (the Yellow Card). Especially grievous offenses, or accumulating two Yellows in one game, result in a Red Card. A player that gets Red Carded is immediately removed from play and must leave the field at once.
Examples of yellow card/cautionable offenses: Persistent fouling of another player, deliberate time-wasting, poor or unsafe challenges/tackles, etc. Red card offenses would include any serious, deliberate foul play or violent conduct, intentionally using your hands to stop what would have been a goal-scoring opportunity, and, of course, receiving two yellow cards (in a single match).
In most tournaments and leagues, receiving a red card also means that the player can not play in their next eligible game. The team is not required to play a man down, but they can not use that player.
Q: Why do they let it end in a tie? Isn't that kinda' lame?
A: In the early, so-called "group stages" of a tournament like the World Cup or the regular season games in the US or England, individual games are run in a round-robin schedule. Each time a team wins, they get 3 points; ties are worth 1 and a loss is worth nothing. At the end of the round-robin stage, the teams with the most points advance to the final stages. To use the U.S. team from this year's World Cup as an example: We tied England, tied Solvenia, and beat Algeria, so we received 1+1+3 points for a total of 5 points.
As I write this (friday afternoon, 25 June), the World Cup has just seen the last of the round-robin "group stage" games. Going forward, we enter the "knock out stage", a more traditional (to American eyes) single-elimination tournament. Each team will play another, and only one team will advance. If there is a tie at the end of regular play, an additional 30 minutes (in the form of two 15 minute halves) are played. If the game is still tied, each team will take a penalty kick against the other until the tie is broken. There are no 'golden goals' or sudden death.
Q: What's the deal with that 'extra' time at the end of the halves?
A: At the end of each half, a few minutes of additional time is added by the referee. This is to make up for lost time due to injuries, etc. This is normally referred to as "injury time" or "stoppage time", never "extra time" - extra time is what gets added to a tie game in the single-elimination phase.
World Cup Specifics:
Q: What happened with that "disallowed" U.S. goal? How is that fair?
A: Referees in soccer have a great deal of discretion on how they run the game. While they are subject to internal review by the league, they are not obligated to explain their decisions to the public. If a referee sees a foul being committed during the course of goal scoring, they may choose to disallow the goal (especially if the foul would have impacted the ability of the defender to defend against the shot). Likewise, referees will sometimes call "advantage play" - when one side is fouled, but as a result ends up in better position. In the of the U.S. goal versus Slovenia - the referee felt that something had happened during the shot that warranted the disallowing of the goal.
Now, on the many, many replays and different camera angles, it was quite clear that not only did none of the U.S. players do anything wrong, several of them were being aggressively fouled at the time. But it's important to note that the refs don't have the benefit of different camera angles, slow-mo replay, etc. so they have to go with what they can see.
Another theory that's been mentioned is that the ref' felt that the foul he called that resulted in the U.S. getting the shot-on-goal might have been a mistake. Apparently (citation required) some refs in the past have called a foul, but immediately realized they've made a mistake. To fix this, they permit the free kick but immediately blow their whistle and call off whatever resulted of it. These are, of course, all just theories. No one has come forward to declare anyone one way or another, however, the referee in question was immediately dropped from the tournament following a staff meeting the Monday after that game.
Q: What the f**k is that buzzing noise!?!
A: All countries have some slight variations in how they cheer for their team. England is famous for its singing, the U.S. love a good chant and "the wave". In Africa in the past decade or so, the vuvuzela has become the method of choice. It's a simple wood or animal horn wind instrument that (i'm told) can be quite lovely when played well. In the stadium however, what you're hearing is a cheap plastic version that just hurts. They can be extremely loud, reaching up to 120-130dB. (now imagine a stadium focusing 80,000 fans blasting those things...)