There's just something a little ludicrous about the World Series. The winner of baseball's annual love-in is hoisted atop America's shoulders and celebrated as the greatest baseball team in the world. Sure it is. The people that know how to play baseball, let alone those who give a crap about the game, come from about seven countries. If you want a real world champion in sports, you have to turn to soccer — or as it's called all over the universe outside the US: football. Over 200 countries or territories compete in its quadrennial world championship, the World Cup, and billions of people know it and love it as their first and only sport. And if you take a look at the next generation of Americans, or their more conspicuous soccer moms, you'll realize that soccer's arrival on the American cultural consciousness is growing faster and more inexorably than the waistbands on our fat-ass population. So it's time you learned a little more about the game. We're here, as always, to help out.

There are a few things you'll need to familiarize yourself with in order to have a functional understanding of the game. First, we'll give you a brief history of the game, so you'll know from whence it came. Then we'll give you a rundown of the objectives of the game and its basic rules. Next, we'll discuss the equipment of the game and the positions of the players. Finally, we'll go over the fouls and violations, and the officials who oversee them.

If you want to see some fancy footwork in action, check out this video on how to be the ultimate footballer.

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1. KNOW THE HISTORY

Basically, people like kicking things around. Okay, so not many Americans seem to — we prefer throwing things (e.g., baseball, basketball) and full-body assault (e.g., football, hockey) — but you have to admit that there's an appeal to just knocking the crap out of something with your foot. Kickers are some of the most impressive athletes in the America — why do you think kickball is so popular with the kiddies?

Well, even if you don't like kicking things around, everyone else seems to. The earliest accounts of a game that resembled modern-day soccer can be found, where else, in ancient China — though this version wasn't pirated from somewhere else. Historians have found evidence dating from 2500 BC that a game known as "tsu chu" was played during the celebration of the emperor's birthday, and it involved kicking animal-skin balls through a hole in a net erected on tall poles. Of course, most of us think of soccer as an Old World game common amongst the Brits, and true to form, they were hooligans as far back as 1100 AD. There are accounts of the game being played in England for hundreds of years, but by the twelfth century, it had devolved into a mob riot played without any rules. Since the kings weren't too keen on losing their soldiers and tax-paying citizens to these early versions of a Sex Pistols' concert, the game was banned repeatedly by royal decree.

But an early version of the game was popular even over here: Native Americans played a game called "pasuckuakohowog," meaning "they gather to play ball with the foot," long before the Italian forward, Columbus, was substituted into the continent in 1492. These games involved as many as 1000 players and were often played on beaches half a mile wide with goals a mile apart.

The first attempt at formal rules for the game were published by an Italian, Giovanni Bardi, who referred to the game as "calcio." In fact, that's what soccer is still called in Italy, so when we said that everyone else calls it football, we lied a little. But hey, maybe after America wins the World Cup three times, then we can justify calling the game something else. Almost three centuries later, in 1877, the football associations of Great Britain assembled to draw up a uniform code. Back then, the British Empire was more than just a pathetic memory, so the game and its rules were exported widely across the world, which is why it is so universal today. Since the creation of those nineteenth century rules, the game has remained largely unchanged, though the international governing body, FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association), does modify the rules from time to time.

2. LEARN THE OBJECTIVE AND FORMAT OF THE GAME

So with that historical context in mind, let's go over how exactly the game works. You'll be relieved to know that soccer has nowhere near the billions of rules that Americans fetishize so much in football and baseball — the game is far more free-flowing and loosey-goosey.

Before we discuss the rules, though, you'll need to know the objective of the game. Very simply, it is for your team to score more goals than the other team. Each team consists of eleven players who can score a goal by moving a ball into the opponents' net with the use of any part of their body except their arms and hands. You've seen it, you know what we're talking about.

Each game lasts 90 minutes, divided into two halves of 45 minutes each. Technically, the clock does not run when the ball is out of play — when it is kicked off the field or picked up by the referee for a substitution or injury — so each half typically runs for more than just 45 minutes. This principle is just like the timing you see in most American sports; e.g., basketball games go on for much longer than just 48 minutes. In soccer, though, the halves rarely go on for much more than 45 minutes — usually the added time or injury time is less than five minutes, but it is up to the referee's discretion. If the game is tied at the end of the 90 minutes, usually it is simply scored as a tie (a la hockey). But what happens in a competition when it is necessary to determine a winner? The tie gets broken by using special rules about extra time and penalty kicks. But before you jump off that bridge, Ace, there's more to learn. If you're dying of curiosity, jump ahead to step 5, learn the rules, to learn about the technical rules of breaking a tie (which can really spruce up a 0 to 0 game).

3. KNOW THE EQUIPMENT

The single most important piece of equipment you will need for a game of soccer is a foot. After that, the ball is important too. No surprises there, since the game is football — and unlike US football (in which only the lamest players do anything to a ball with their feet), it is appropriately named. The official soccer ball is made of leather, is 27-28" in circumference, and weighs 14-16 ounces. While having a ball is more or less critical to the sport, you may want to bear in mind the fact that Diego Maradona — arguably one of the greatest players ever — grew up in Argentina playing with a clump of rags, and that the Brazilian national team — unarguably the greatest soccer playing country ever — often practices with tennis balls. If you really have a passion for the sport, just find something round and kick it about. Except babies and puppies. They're too cute.

If you want to take things very seriously, though, you'll need another piece of equipment: a very large field. Soccer fields are similar to US football fields in dimension, between 50–100 yards wide and between 100–130 yards long. At either end is a goal, threaded with a net, and on the four corners of the field are flags. Click here to see a good picture of a soccer field.

Another piece of equipment vital to the game is a coin, to be tossed and forecasted as a way of initiating the game. The referee calls the two captains to the center of the field before the game begins and asks the home captain to call the coin in the air. Whoever wins the toss has the option of determining either which team kicks off or which side each teams plays on. The loser is then assigned the remaining choice. It's all rather civilized. At least on the field, anyway.

Beyond the institutional equipment, each player will need to have a pair of football shoes, or cleats as they are called in the US. That, of course, assumes the game is being played on grass. If the game is on turf, the players will wear flats, common amongst non-soccer playing undergraduates. Every player is also required to wear a pair of shin guards, which are exactly what you would think: a hard plastic pad surrounded by softer fabric that extends from below the knee to above the ankle, secured usually by velcro straps, designed to avoid fractures to the shin, which is so vulnerable in a sport where everyone is kicking all the time.

4. MEET THE PLAYERS

So with the equipment secured, we need to assemble a team. There are eleven players on each side, of whom one is a goalkeeper and, as such, is governed by slightly different rules. The most important distinction is that a goalkeeper is the only player who can touch the ball with his hands (for the sake of easy reading, let's assume it's a boy goalkeeper). In fact, since goalkeepers are charged with preventing the ball from crossing their goal, they do an awful lot of touching with the hands. There are a few limitations on all this handtouching: first, a goalie cannot use his hands outside of an area called the penalty box, which is a box 18 yards deep affixed to the goal line within his own half; second, the goalie cannot use his hands if the ball is passed to him intentionally by one of his own defenders. This second rule was instituted to avoid excruciatingly boring games in which a team with a lead would preserve it by kicking the ball back to their goalie chronically.

In front of the goalkeeper is usually a row of four players who are defenders. On the left and right, you have the left full back and right full back, and between them, you have a center back or central defender. The fourth defender often plays slightly behind the center back, and is called the sweeper, because his or her job is to sweep up any defensive work that the three others cannot handle. Captain Obvious says, "As the last line of defense, this player is usually an excellent defender."

In front of the defense, you have the midfield, which refers collectively to the three of four players who operate in the middle of the field, between defenders and attackers. Unimpaired by overactive imaginations, soccer's founders have named these positions left-half, center-half (or center-midfield), and right-half. These players are responsible for defending when needed, and for winning the ball in the many skirmishes that occur in the middle of the field. When the ball falls into their team's possession, midfielders are responsible for orchestrating the attack by passing amongst themselves and ultimately giving the ball to forwards who may be well-positioned to score.

The front line consists of forwards or attackers. Perhaps because of their goal-scoring, these players have slightly more interesting monikers. On the sides, there are the left-wing and right-wing, and in the center, there are the center-forwards or strikers. These players are known for their speed and ability to score goals. The wingers are often used to cross the ball with accuracy into the middle of the field where the strikers, or midfielders, should be positioned to take a shot on goal. Strikers are renowned for their ability to score goals with either foot and their head — although central midfielders are often the quarterbacks on a soccer team, it is the successful striker who is usually the fans' favorite. Forget about the long ball, it's all about the goals, baby.

Unlike almost all American sports, these players cannot be substituted freely. In a typical FIFA contest, only three players are allowed be substituted throughout the entire course of a game, which places a premium on stamina. Many substitutions are used late in the game, so that the team that is behind can put in an extra striker (by replacing a defensive player) or two to press for that needed goal; and so that the team that is ahead can load up on fresh defenders to help preserve their lead.

Although the most common configurations are 3-5-2 (three defenders, five midfielders, and two forwards, in addition to the goalie, of course) and 4-4-2 (four defenders, four midfielders, and two forwards), these positions are eminently flexible and there are no restrictions on movement. That means a team that needs to score can switch to a 1-3-3-4 configuration, and one that wants to defend a lead may switch to a 1-4-4-2 format. These variations should not be taken too literally, since strikers may be called to defend, with their skill at getting to a ball obviously a useful asset on either end of the field.

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.