I just wondered, because on looking up the word touchdown in my English-German dictionary, I learned that it translates to Handauf, literally “hand-on”. Which in soccer sounds like a violation.
Any Dopers from the soccer (or if you prefer it, real football) playing countries care to fill me in?
I have not heard “touch down” used in soccer. I have heard “score!” or “goal!” when the ball “kisses” the net.
xicanorex
If you consider it literally, “touchdown” is meaningless in American Football because the points are scored when the offensive team retains/gains possession of the ball within their opponents’ End Zone.
For comparison, however, you need to choose the sport of rugby not soccer, because American Football is derived from rugby. In rugby (either code) the points are only awarded to the attacking team if one of their players retains possession of the ball and makes it contact with the ground beyond the Try Line.
I don’t like the translation of ‘touchdown’ to ‘hand on’.
As a native English speaker, a ‘touchdown’ means something touches the ground, be it a spaceship or a rugby ball.
‘Hand on’ to me means to pass something on, either charitably or in a will.
If running in, an offensive player ‘crosses the plane’ of the end zone, rather than touching down. I guess there’s no snappy phrase for this.
I can’t improve on everton’s knowledge of soccer from many threads (well done, that man!), but I can make couple of minor quibbles about rugby:
The player scores a try by applying downward pressure to the ball, on or beyond the try line.
You can also gain possession over the try line (after a kick ahead).
However, although this is undoubtedly accurate, it still counts as downwards pressure " on or beyond the try line" if you touchdown ahead of the try-line, but your momentum carries you over - must be one motion - a secondary movement will disqualify the action and no score will be awarded.
That is all.
To return to the OP, ‘touchdown’ does not have any meaning in the world of football (soccer).
Yes, touchdown, hand-on doesn’t mean anything in football.
I don’t know German very well, but I wonder if “handauf” would translate better as “touch” than as “touchdown.” When the ball rolls across the sideline and out of play (or “out of bounds” in American football), you can say it went “into touch.” That would be the only area on the pitch where any player (other than the goalkeeper in his box) can literally “touch” the ball with his hand to do a throw-in.
It sounds to me like the dictionary mistranslated “touchdown” as “touch.”
A quick search of sporting websites finds “handauf” is the German for the tactic in rubgy football of putting down the ball behind your own team’s Try Line to stop an opponent doing so. I forget what, if anything, this is called in English.
According to my dictionary (Lexica translating thesaurus), “touchdown” translates to “Landung” in the aeronautical sense or “Tor” (= goal) in the American sporting sense. As to the OP, maybe this is getting confused with the soccer terms “handball” (illegally touching the ball) and “kicking into touch” (kicking the ball out of play for tactical advantage).
In rugby, the term “handauf”= “hand-on” would make sense in two areas: downing the ball behind the opponent’s goal line (scoring a try), or if you made a touchdown in your own goal area, as this would take the ball out of play, and play must be restarted by scrum or drop-in. The decription of the action in both cases is the same: your hand must be on the ball at the moment the ball touches the ground, thus hand-on.
Be aware though that “auf” in German also sometimes means “off”! So the word might also sometimes paradoxically mean “hands-off”!
The ball kisses the net? Never heard that one before!
Quite right! (Are you a player?)
You ‘touch down’. Note that it is vital who made the ball cross the line beforehand.
If the other team, you have a 20 metre dropout (reasonably safe).
If your team did it, it’s a 5 metre scrum to the opposition (very dangerous for you).
You’ve must have found a better translater than I found…
Handauf= Lay down the building in the own Rugby Malfeld, in order to forestall thereby the opponent …
Was wondering whether it was German for ‘handball’…
“handauf… elfmeter… gol… ein ze nul…”
Seems not.