So I’ve been watching a bit of the World Cup on TV and since I’m new to the sport I’ve have a few questions and I’m sure I’m not the only person wondering some things about the sport.
So if anybody else has some stupid questions about it they should also post here.
Fisrts off what company is the sponsor? I’ve never heard of FIFA. What do they make? Or is that some sort of acronym for Football International Football Association?
Why on earth do the goalies (keepers) have a different shirt than the rest of the team?
While watching the US I thought the guy head butted into his own goal. (latter on someone did)
Fédération Internationale de Football Association.
Goalies have a different shirt because… hmmm. Maybe because they’ll be easier to spot by the referees in case they make a handball outside the box, or another transgression?
Trading shirts is a sign of respect for the opponent. If you’re pissed off at your opponent, you refuse. Or, as Ronald Koeman once did with Olaf Thon’s shirt: accept it and wipe your ass with it.
FIFA does indeed stand for the International Federation of Football Associations, except they are French-based, so the “International” and the “Federation” get switched around.
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The goalkeepers are the only ones allowed to use thier hands on the ball, they wear a different coloured shirt to make them stand out for this reason.
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Normal (non-goalkeeper) players can use any part of the body except the hands to guide the ball, including the head.
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As momentoes of the match - personally I wouldn’t… :yuk:
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Keeping time is part of the referee’s job, and the decision to end the game is his and his alone - the clock shown on the TV is simply a guide for the audience.
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Also it should pointed out, if you are a dummy, that FIFA is introducing a brand new ball that supposedly makes it harder for goalkeepers to stop the shot. I dont know if this is a record, but up until today there have been 19 games that have had a goal.
Yellow and red cards are disciplinary. Red cards are given for very serious or dangerous fouls ( e.g. Thierry Henry vs Uruguay) and result in the player in question being sent off ( and also missing the next game). This means that his team must play the rest of the game with 10 men. They play the next game with 11, of course; they just can’t include the player who was sent off the game before. Certain situations automatically draw a red card. For example if a player has “a clear scoring opportunity” and is fouled by the last defender, then the defender must be given a red card. Similarly if a player reacts violently to being fouled himself then he receives a red card.
Yellow cards are given for infringement of the rules that are serious but not as serious as those warranting a red card. If any player gets two yellow cards in one game then they “add up” to a red card and the player is again sent off.
semi-circle: when there’s a penalty, the other players must stand 10 yards from the penalty spot i.e. outside the semi-circle and penalty area.
yellow/red cards: You get a yellow (you’re ‘booked’) if you commit a bad foul or break certain other rules - it’s like a final warning. Trangress again and you get a red i.e. you’re sent off. If you do something sufficently heinous, you can get an immediate red. They introduced them years ago, I think to make it easier for spectators/commentators to see what the ref’s decision is, and maybe to publicly humiliate the player, to emphasise the punishment.
Could you explain this particular incident. in the France Uruguay spoiler thread, another commentator said this was obvious. Now, I watched the slo-mo replay a couple of times, and really couldn’t see why it was a red card offense. I mean, it did not look deliberate nor that bad. It wasn’t a knee shot. I dunno. Please give a little perspective. Seems like people that follow this stuff see an obvious red card, and it whooshed me.
It was what is known in the jargon as a “two-footed challenge” i.e. one where the player in question lunges at the ball/player. In serious cases this sort of tackle can result in a broken ankle for the victim and so, to discourage them, they almost invariably result in a red card ( sometimes even when the tackler hits the ball first, which is normally the test of whether a tackle is legal or not)
Ok let me explain my level of ‘football’ knowledge.
We actually played soccer in my 8th grade P.E. class. The teams consisted of one goalie and ten people running around like madmen. There was always a mob around the ball.
Now I see there are some sort of positions.
Defenders, Strikers, Doggy (or was that dodgy)
So I pretty much know what the goalie does. How many of each type of the other positions are there and where do they go on the field?
As a rule of thumb you’ve got wingers, strikers, midfield, and fullbacks. But soccer is very flexible, so the players can go wherever they want. If your team is attacking, it’s very common for fullbacks to end up in the other team’s crease (effective use of this tactic helped France win 4 years ago).
The traditional formation is known as 4-4-2, which is four defenders, four midfielders and two strikers.
The defenders play closest to their goalkeeper and in the 4-4-2 formation, are divided into two ‘centre halves’ who are in the middle of the defence and two ‘full backs’, who kind of play in the corners. Full backs can play an offensive role also by attacking up the wings (the sides of the pitch). Centre halves tend to stay in their team’s half of the field except for some offensive free kicks and corners, where their height comes in useful (see above posts about heading the ball).
Midfielders, as the name suggests, play in the middle of the field. They can be subdivided into central midfielders, who tend to play near the centre circle (I’m simplifying here) and wingers, who play nearer the sides of the pitch. In general, midfielders tend to be the most creative players on the pitch, although you also see midfield ‘stoppers’ whose main job is to win possession from their opponents.
The job of strikers is to score goals. They play closest to the oppositions goal.
Just to complicate things further, you also see 3-5-2, 4-5-1 and 4-3-3 formations and individual players’ roles withinh these broad formations vary widely. Watch a Brazil match and you may wonder whether there’s any formation at all.
Hope that helps and don’t even get me started on offside, which can only be explained after eight pints with the aid of two beermats, an ashtray and an empty glass.
Well, there’s at leat eight thousand ways of playing 4-4-2 alone (slight exaggeration). Some of 'em look pretty much like 3-5-2 or 4-3-3.
How you play depends on the strenghts of your individual team members, the other team (players and tactics) and how you want to bring out the best in your team (create chances, stiffle the opposition, etc).
The game is very fluid and flexible and even small tactical changes - for example, telling a player to position himself 5-10 yards behind his fellow striker (rather than alongside) - brings a range of different options into play. That player then looks to link with the forward or, more likely, with the wingers and play takes a different form. Had he been alongside the forward, he’d head for goal…but it would have been more difficult to get the ball to him…unless the defenders weren’t up to their job…unless you played it to him in the air, in which case the defenders would have got to it…maybe, the defenders are reluctant to move out of their line the extra 5-10 yards to mark him because you’ve also moved another player slightly…
and we all know how painfull that could be (ba-dump-bump)
Ok I’m getting there.
Can you fill me in on the bracket system being used now and how teams advance from one group to the next. I gather there are points awarded for wins but does only the top team from each group advance? How does the ‘goal differentail’ affect it. (or is that part of a car?)
Crease?
