The 1st official is the referee, who watches from on the pitch, issues red/yellow cards, judges on penalties and free kicks, and keeps score.
The 2nd and 3rd officials are the linesmen, who run on the long sides of the pitch. They indicate offsides and throw-ins.
The 4th official stands off the pitch, by the two team benches. He relays substitutions to the players and referee on the pitch by holding up the (now) electronic board with the numbers on, and generally relays orders between the referee and stadium operators (such as the scoreboard operator).
There is no 5th official.
Only the 4th official is called “the 4th official”, the others are pretty much always “the ref” or “the linesmen”.
Interesting. He’s probably there to take over if two of the others are unable to work (the 4th making up the place for one of the other 3 usually). It is the World Cup, so it’s important that nothing goes wrong. Double redundancy?
Hadn’t heard of the fifth umpire before, but it seems like a reasonable insurance policy. During one Ipswich match this season, a lino hurt his back (how? no idea). He became the fourth official, the ref became the lino, and the 4th official became the ref. Such a farce wouldn’t look good on the international stage, and having a substitute ready is a reasonable precaution.
I have noticed that some players have a stat “caps”. I think it’s mostly players who play in the English premiere league. What does that stat represent?
Caps are the amount of times played. Usually only referred to in international terms, so for example if David Beckham plays 30 matches for England he has 30 Caps.
I think players used to actually get caps for playing, but that sounds like the kind of thing that’d easily be an urban legend.
There’s a guideline of 30 seconds added time for each substitution. Any substantial interruption to play such as a serious injury or people running on to the pitch should also be accounted for, as should deliberate time-wasting. Celebrations, setting up free kicks, arguing with the referee etc. should incur added time if they take longer than the ref deems reasonable.
Anyway, at the end of the first half there’s usually between zero and two minutes added time, at the end of the second half between one and four minutes, typically three. My liberal use of the word “should” in the preceding paragraph is due to the fact that sometimes the amount of added time seems to bear no relation to the total duration of stoppages.
I don’t see that either method is ‘simpler’, just different. It’s how it’s always been done, and few people familiar with the game have any problem with it.
it doesn’t need to be full force. Just a clip of an ankle can send someone flying to the ground. In a sport played with the feet (mostly), it can’t be too surprising to see players hitting the ground quite often.
Yes. Timekeeping in soccer is dumb. Not nearly enough transparency for one thing.
One good thing about the ref keeping time and added time, is the game will never end in the middle of the ball rolling over the goal line or something, just because the horn blows to end the game. The ref should never end the game on a clear goal scoring chance.
(I wish someone would have told the ref I had last night in a game I played. Score was 2-2, and a through ball broke one of our strikers for a clear break-away. While closing in on the keeper, the ref blew the whistle to end the game - this was an incorrect decision)
Not called linesman anymore, now they’re Assistant Referees :rolleyes:
Also, out of interest.
Why did shys change their name to throw-ins and bye kicks to goal kicks?
I’ve not heard a commentator use the word stantion for a while either.
