5. LEARN THE RULES

The Officials

The game is regulated by one head official, called the referee, who operates in the center of the field. He or she is assisted by two linesmen, whose job it is to monitor whether the ball has left the field by crossing over the sidelines or the goal lines. Since the entire ball must cross the plane of the field, either in the air or on the ground, it can often be difficult for the referee to determine whether and where precisely the ball has gone out, so the linesmen use flags to indicate the fact of the ball's departure and the direction of which team now has possession.

Fouls

When a player commits a foul (kicks another player, touches the ball with his hands, or breaks any other rule), the referee will either award the other team a free kick or call for advantage. For instance, if Team A's forward is dribbling with a ball toward goal, but just before he gets a shot off, he is kicked in the knee by a Team B defender, the referee has a two choices:

CHOICE 1: His first choice is to blow the play dead with his whistle, bring the ball back to where the foul occurred, and let Team A have a free kick. (see below)

CHOICE 2: His second choice is to take a quick second to determine whether Team A's forward is unimpaired by the foul and still is in good position to shoot. If he is, the referee will call out "advantage," which lets the players know he saw a foul occur but that in his view, the victim of the foul would actually be harmed by having the play stopped. If the Team A forward goes ahead and shoots but misses, that's too bad -- he doesn't then get the free kick. The window for calling the foul is just a second or two, and if advantage is called, the foul evaporates. Of course, if the foul was egregious, the referee can still upbraid the Team B defender after the ball has left play.

Free Kicks

OK, free kicks are kinda tricky, so we will make extensive use of analogy. Now, when a player breaks a rule in basketball, the opposing team sometimes gets a free-throw. Similarly, when a player breaks a rule in soccer, a member from the opposing team gets to kick the ball from a stationary position with no opposing player closer than 10 yards from the ball — a free kick. Free kicks are awarded from the position of the infraction, and anyone on the victim's team can take the kick. To perceive how this arrangement impacts the flow of the game, imagine if the same were true in basketball: if someone on the Victim Team (VT) was fouled at midcourt, it would be unlikely that the VT would try to score on a transcontinental free throw; instead, they'd either pass the ball quickly to get the game started again, or they'd run a set play to get the ball to one of their good players in scoring position. This is how soccer works. The majority of free kicks are short passes, made quickly just to get the game going again — with about as much excitement as the average in-bounds pass in basketball. But when the free kick is from a dangerous position (that is, near the goal), you start to see set plays develop. These set plays usually involve someone who is an accurate passer taking the free kick and crossing the ball in the air to a few teammates who are running into a position where they call volley the ball with their head or foot into the goal.

A free kick from anywhere within 25 yards is dangerous business for the defending team because there are players who specialize in scoring from those long range kicks. In fact, some of the most spectacular goals in soccer are scored off just these set plays. What you will commonly see in a soccer game, therefore, is the defending team assemble a "wall" in front of the kick. That is, several defenders will stand in a row, blocking the kicker's view of their goal. This wall, of course, must be at least 10 yards from the ball. Typically, the defending goalie will oversee the architecture of the wall — he usually places a wall of 4 or 5 players to cover one side of the goal, while he takes the other. This way, when the kicker takes the free kick, he will either kick the ball toward a relatively small area of open space of the goal, which the goalie has covered, or he will belt it ineffectually into the wall. The most spectacular goals in soccer are the ones in which the kicker kicks the ball around the wall and into the section of the goal farthest from the goalie — yes, that's right, around the wall. A soccer ball can be skillfully curved, and the best players can put enormous spin on the ball with both velocity and accuracy, leaving goalies stand feebly to watch the ball curl into the net.

And just when you thought it was safe to go back on the field, we must reveal that there are actually TWO kinds of free kicks: direct and indirect. "Direct" kicks are ones that where the ball is allowed travel directly into the net to score. "Indirect" kicks are ones where a player in addition to the kicker must first touch the ball before it travels into the next to be considered a goal. "What the hell is this all about?" you must be wondering. Well, think about free kicks from the defending team's perspective… Although you must stand at least 10 yards away from the ball when it is kicked, you can rush the gap once it has been touched. Thus if you impose upon the offensive team the burden of having two people touch the ball before it goes into the net instead of just one, it makes it a crapload harder to score. It's almost like the difference between a free throw and a pass in basketball. The spectacular goals are almost always scored off direct kicks, since the wall is 10 yards away and is more or less frozen when the kicker belts the ball. On an indirect kick, the kicker must either lob the ball into a danger area — but bear in mind that a goalie (who can use his hands) will almost always have an advantage over an attacker — or must make a wimpy little pass to someone who will then fire a goal. Of course, once this little tap pass is made, the defenders in the wall can rush the shooter, greatly cutting down the angle and usually successfully blocking the kick.

This leads us to ask the almighty question: when do you get a direct kick, and when do you get an indirect kick? Not surprisingly, it depends on the severity of the foul. You have to commit a more serious foul to be punished with a direct. They are awarded for flagrant fouls, such as kicking, tackling from behind, spitting, pulling shirts, and the ever-feared handball. An indirect is awarded for less serious things like dangerous play (high kicking at someone's knees), obstruction, and offsides.

Into this mush, we add one more type of kick: a penalty kick. A penalty kick is a direct free kick very much like the aforementioned free throw in basketball. It has three main characteristics:

  1. Whenever a foul occurs within the penalty box (the box that extends 18 yards from the goal line), where the foul happened has nothing to do with where the kicker takes his kick. If a defender commits any foul within the penalty box that merits a direct free kick, the offending team doesn't take the kick from the site of the infraction.

  2. The defending team does not get to set up a wall. Instead, the referee orders the penalty area cleared of all but two players: the kicker and the goalie.

  3. The ref will next place the ball on the penalty mark, a soccer ball-sized dot 13 yards from the center of the goal. The set up looks kind of like a free throw: you have a kicker addressing the ball from the penalty spot, a nervous looking goalie standing 13 yards away wondering how he's possibly going to stop a goal here, and hordes of other defenders and attackers lined up on the edge of the penalty box just waiting to pounce on the ball if it is blocked by the goalie or bounces off the goal. Just like free throws, the presumption is that the kicker will score; if a goalie saves a penalty, it is cause for much celebration and the removal of sports bras. Oh, and the kicker is usually vilified and, if South American, he may… "disappear."

Offsides

Most fouls in soccer are pretty straightforward: if you fight with the other guy, it's a foul. One violation that is not so obvious is "offsides." An attacking player can stand in a position in relation to the defenders that places him offsides, and if he is then passed the ball in that offsides position, the referee will whistle the violation and the defending team will be awarded an indirect free kick from the point of the infraction. The purpose of this rule is to prevent forwards from hanging around in front of the opposing goal all day, just waiting for a long pass to collect and then be in a sweet position to belt home a goal. In hockey, a player may not receive a pass beyond the blue line, and in soccer, the blue line is the second-last defender. Usually, this means that the goalie will be in goal, and the sweeper will be 20 yards in front of him (or further if the play is all up at the other goal); the other team's leading forward, therefore, must stay even with the sweeper. If he wanders into a position between this final defender and the goalie, he cannot be passed the ball without triggering the violation. This rule keeps forwards even with defenders, which is obviously a big help to defenders. Once a ball is passed, however, a fast forward may then be able to use his speed to break away from the defense, but not before. There are a bevy of exceptions and nuances to this rule, which even many rabid fans do not fully comprehend, but you now know the basics.

Starting (and Restarting) Play

The ball leaves the field in soccer an awful lot, so you should familiarize yourself with how the game is restarted whenever this happens. The game is first started with a kick-off (after the aforementioned coin toss), in which the two teams are confined to their own halves and are arrayed loosely in one of the configurations we have already discussed. The team that is kicking off will typically have its two strikers or any two forwards stand over the ball and, when the referee whistles play to begin, one will tap the ball forward a little and the other will then kick the ball back to a midfielder in their half. The rule is that the ball must make one full revolution into the other half and cannot be touched by the initial kicker until someone else has kicked it first. Hence the two players. The reason that they almost always pass the ball backwards is because that is where all of their supporting players are and there is almost no way two forwards would be able to take the ball through eleven defenders on their own. This kick-off is repeated by the other team to begin the second half and by the scored-upon team any time a goal is scored.

The most common way in which the game needs to be restarted is when the ball crosses one of the sidelines. The ball is reintroduced to play after "going into touch" by a throw-in. In a rare use of the hands, a player from the team other than the one whose player last touched the ball before it crossed the sidelines will throw the ball back into play. The same thing happens in basketball, but the form of the soccer throw-in is much more formalized than inbounding in basketball. The player must place two hands on the ball and holding the ball behind his head, must release the ball with both hands simultaneously in a single flowing motion without lifting either foot off the ground. If a player does not follow this form, the referee will whistle a foul-throw and award a throw-in from the same spot to the other team. Usually, the ref will call anything that just looks awkward, so tentative throw-ins are often whistled. Some particularly strong players can really hurl a ball, but one cannot score a goal by chucking the ball straight in from the sidelines — it must touch at least one other player before it can be a goal.

The second most common way in which the game needs to be restarted is when the ball crosses the goal line (not into the net, but across the end of the field). Here, the rule is bifurcated: if the ball crosses the goal line after being last touched by a member of the team attacking that goal, the defending team is awarded a goal kick; if the last player to touch the ball is on the defending team, the attacking team is awarded a corner (see our friend, the field). It seems like we need some last definitions:

Goal Kick: a free kick taken from anywhere within a small 6-yard box contained within the 18-yard penalty box, as long as it is on the same general side of the goal where the ball left the field. Usually, a defender or the goalie will take the goal-kick and belt the ball way back up to the other half — this is an effective defensive technique.

Corner: a free kick taken from the intersection of the sideline and the goal line (in other words, from the corner of the field), on the side of the field where the ball exited the field. The attacking team will usually station a number of players in front of the goal and then cross the ball into them from the corner. Simply having the ball so close to the goal is often a harrowing scenario for the defense, and many goals are scored off of corners. In fact, some players are so adept at controlling the ball that they can curve the ball all the way into the goal itself from the corner. Mad skillz, baby.

Tie-Breaking

In competitions where it is necessary to determine a winner, however, there are two primary ways to break the tie: by playing extra time or by a penalty shoot-out. Different tournaments use different variations of these options, though many use both, starting with extra time and going to penalties if they are needed. Extra time simply involves having the teams play another mini-game, divided into two 15 minute halves. Extra time is not usually played "sudden death," in which the games ends as soon as one team scores first; rather, the full 30 minutes of extra time is played and only if one team is ahead at the end will it be deemed the winner, just like in basketball.

If a game is still tied at the end of extra time, the game will usually be decided by penalties. Five players are selected from each team who then take penalty kicks one at a time, alternating between the two teams; if at the end of the ten attempts, one team has scored more goals, it is deemed the winner. Not all ten penalties need to be taken, however, to determine a winner: think of a situation in which the first three players from Team A all score, and the first three players from Team B miss; even though four players still have yet to attempt their penalties, there is no mathematical way that Team B can win, so the game is over as soon as one team has won.

If the score is still tied at the end of all ten penalty attempts, the shoot-out then becomes sudden death. Each team selects a player to attempt another pair of penalties. If one team scores and the other misses, the games ends immediately. If both teams score or both miss, the rounds will continue until there's a winner. Nerve racking stuff. But pretty darn exciting for the fans.

With this primer to how the game operates, we hope you will now understand and appreciate the next soccer game you watch. It's not really boring if you know what's going on. Trust us: 5 billion people can't all be wrong.

And now that the serious soccer stuff is out of the way, we refer you to Cracked.com for a quick laugh at the World Cup.