When is the goaltender not allowed to handle the ball?
The reason I ask is that I saw a highlight where a team took an indirect free kick inside the penalty area and just outside the goal box. I had never seen such a thing and it seems that the reason for the indirect free kick was the goaltender handled a ball that was last kicked by a member of his team.
I see teams play the ball back to their goaltenders all the time during the course of play so what was so different about this play?
It’s called a backpass - the goalkeeper isn’t allowed to pick up the ball if one of their own team kicks it to them. The rule was introduced to stop teams passing the ball to the goalkeeper who would then pick it up and kick it all the way down the field. They can pick it up if one of their team head the ball to them though.
They are never allowed to pick up the ball outside the larger box around the goal (the 18 yard box).
I recall right after they made this rule change, I was playing in a game and I deflected a shot by the other team, and the goalkeeper caught it. They gave the other team a free kick. Took a few tries for the (lousy, IMHO) refs to get the hang of the difference between “pass back to the keeper” and “ball ricochets off of foot”.
[Toby Charles]
I’m sure you never saw anything like that in the Bundesliga.
[/TC]
The goalie however is allowed to pick up a ball passed back from a teammate in a situation where the other team has a chance to score a goal. So if a defender gets one step ahead of an opposing forward who is about to score a goal, and then passes the ball to his goalie, that is perfectly legal.
The rule was introduced to prevent teams from running down the clock. It´s a judgment call, but IMO well defined, and there seems to be almost no controversy about it.
Uhh, no. Let’s try fighting ignorance here, not contributing to it, alrighty?
From the Laws of the Game (PDF):
[quote]
An indirect free kick is awarded to the opposing team if a goalkeeper, inside his own penalty area, commits any of the following four offences:
[ul][li]takes more than six seconds while controlling the ball with his hands before releasing it from his possession;[]touches the ball again with his hands after it has been released from his possession and has not touched any other player;[]touches the ball with his hands after it has been deliberately kicked to him by a team-mate;[*]touches the ball with his hands after he has received it directly from a throw-in taken by a team-mate.[/ul][/li][/quote]
There are four key points to remember here: The ball must be kicked, the kick must be deliberate, it must be kicked to the goalkeeper, and it must be kicked by a teammate. There is some subtlety built into the law, but it’s relatively straightforward.
Nope. No such condition. What he other team are doing at the time is irrelevant. The keeper cannot pick up the ball if it was last kicked by a team-mate. The only interpretation involved is that the ref must decide if the ball was deliberately kicked, or whether it was just a deflection.
I’m puzzled about the rules quoted by Fox Paws, my understanding is that it doesn’t have to be a deliberate pass to the keeper, just that it ends up with the keeper. It could be a complete miskick that the keeper has to sprint across to the other side of his box to retrieve, and he still wouldn’t be allowed to pick it up.
The only time the goalie can pick up the ball is if their team-mate doesn’t kick it, so a headed pass or “chest-down” is ok.
They’ve fiddled with this rule, and others around it, a few times over the last 10-15 years, I think they’ve finally got it right.
Hmmm… yes you´re right. I watch quite a bit of football and I was absolutely sure the rule was the way I described it. But I checked again, and it wasn´t. I could swear I see this all the time. Strange.
But to add something to the discussion here is something I found out while checking the rules (maybe I confused the two rules): if a player tries to circumvent this rule by “lobbing” the ball to himself and then pass the ball to his own goalie with his head or knee (which is normally not forbidden), and is not under pressure by the opposing team, then this is unsportsmanlike conduct, and the penalty is the same as kicking the ball to his goalie.
I have seen this pentaly (an indirect free kick from the 5 yard box) carried out a few times, and I think none of those resulted in a goal, which I think is strange, as it seems so easy.
In the case of a “complete miskick,” you are mistaken. A goalkeeper can handle a “complete miskick” (“accidentally deflected or misdirected” in the quote below). Some more clarification from the Advice to Referees (PDF):
Ahh, you’re looking for this decision from the International F.A. Board, included in the Laws:
(Clarification: I assume by “5 yard box” you mean the goal area, which is actually 6 yards from the goal.) Scoring goals off indirect free kicks from inside the penalty area (“the box,” “the 18”) can actually be pretty tricky. It shouldn’t be … but attacking teams often let the excitement of an easy goal-scoring opportunity overwhelm their common sense.
What keeps the defender from popping the ball up and heading it back to his keeper?
Why wouldn’t the defender do this in practice?
Sorry, slightly OT, but I find it interesting: I used “5 yard box”, because I assumed that´s the correct term. I´m form Austria, and here we call that area the “5er”, (“five meter box”) and and the penalty area the “16er”, which is apperently “the 18” in England / USA. I thought yards / meters were close enough that common terms were used. What is the normal term for penalty kicks? Just “penalty kick”? Here we refer to it als “Elfmeter” wich means 11 meters. Is it a “12 yard - kick”? Sorry for the slight highjack.
Common terms here are “the 6” (goal area) and the 18 (penalty area). Penalty kicks are usually called PKs. “12 yard-kick” lacks a certain je nais se quois.
Like you, I had always figured meters and yards were close enough. So much for that idea! Maybe I’ll start using your terms just to confuse people…
Nothing.
In practise if the player has enough time to execute this manouevre he would not need to do it.
Well, that and he’d be cautioned for unsporting behavio(u)r.
Right. I don’t have time to look it up right now, but I definately remember some sort of “violating the spirit of the rules” rule from when I took a class on how to be a ref (long ago.) I believe this was used as an example.