Basic Tactics: Shape

In soccer, the way in which a team of players lines up is called a team's shape or formation. Shape is an important part of tactics. Depending on what kind of players a team has, and what their particular skills are, a manager needs to field them in a way that harnesses those skills to maximum effect. While footballers are generally more fluid in their ability to move around the pitch, generally speaking players tend to stick to the part of the pitch assigned to them in the team shape. In this article, we'll talk about how a shape is organized, how notation defining a shape is written. We'll go into the specifics of different formations in later articles.

How is the sport structured? Transfers

Let's talk about player movement.

How is the sport structured? - The Cup

In our post on league structure, I mentioned that soccer leagues tend not to have playoffs determine championships as American sports do. Instead, league titles are decided through the regular season. Instead of playoffs, nearly every national league has a Cup title, which is the second trophy a team can win in a season, though it is usually considered less prestigious than winning the league title. In this article, we'll discuss how Cup competitions work, and how they differ from the classic concept of the playoffs.

Basic tactics: Philosophy

(This article owes a lot of credit to the excellent Mr. Btongue's youtube video on soccer, which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT3PElHuxCY)

In this article, we're going to discuss the basics of team philosophy. Philosophy is probably the most basic thing to organizing a team; determining positions, choosing players, deciding on formation, all those things are based off of a team's philosophy.

How is the sport structured? - Domestic leagues

Parallel to the posts on tactics, I'm going to write a series of posts on how the different competitions in soccer work. I think it's safe to say that there isn't anything quite like the league format of professional soccer in the USA.

Basic Tactics: The positions

Now that we know the rules, let's expand our knowledge. I'm going to start talking about the different positions on a soccer team. In this article, we'll talk about how positions are defined, and very briefly describe each of the basic positions. Then, we'll expand in a series of articles that talk in greater depth about what each position does, what kind of attributes you need to play that position, etc.

Laws 15 - 17: Throw-ins, goal kicks, and corners

Law 15: Throw-ins

A throw-in is taken when the ball crosses one of the touchlines and goes out of play. The team that kicked the ball out of play loses possession of the ball, and the other side gets to take a throw-in. During a throw-in, a designated player stands out of bounds and, as the name suggests, throws the ball back into play. This is the only time during play that a non-goalkeeper may touch the ball with their hands. Opposing players must stand at least two meters away from the player taking the throw-in. The player who throws the ball in cannot touch it again until it touches at least one other player (so they can't throw it to themselves). Lastly a player cannot score a goal by throwing the ball into the opposing net.

Laws 12 - 14: Fouls and Penalties

I'm going to close up this series with an article about how fouls work in soccer, along with free kicks and penalties, which come as the result of a rules violation. We'll finish with one last article describing the last couple of laws.

Unlike most sports, soccer fouls are a little hard to define. For example, American football gives a name to every type of penalty, and basketball has a lot of names for foul types. Not so for soccer. Instead, fouls are given for specific actions and are grouped by the type of benefit given to the fouled team.

Law 11: Offside

Unfortunately, the offside rule is probably the single hardest rule to wrap one's head around. I'm going to describe  the official wording of the rule, then run through some examples of what is and is not offside using diagrams.

Laws 9 & 10: The ball out of play, and the method of scoring

Law 9:

This one is an easy one. A ball is considered to have gone out of play if it completely crosses either the touchline or the byline. Players can go out of bounds if they wish while in position of the ball, but cannot let the ball cross the line. If the ball cross a touchline, the opposing side takes a throw-in. If the ball crosses the byline, a corner or goal kick is taken.


Law 10: The method of scoring

A ball is considered scored if it completely crosses the goal line and enters the goal. If any part of the ball is over the goal line, it is not considered a goal.

Over the last 5-10 years, professional soccer has experimented with goal line technology, which uses a chip inside of the ball to determine when the goal line has been crossed. This technology is not widely used in the sport yet.

Laws seven & eight: The length of a match, and restarting play

Law 7

One of the things that I love most about the sport of soccer is that compared to essentially every other sport, a match starts when it's supposed to and ends within the actual time limit. The reason for this is that unlike other sports, the clock never stops in a soccer match, and so there are never pauses for commercials, never endless halves that go on and on because of timeouts, etc.

Laws five & six: The officials

A soccer match is officiated by at least one and up to four officials.  The main official is called the referee; his or her two assistants are called the assistant referees, and occasionally at the highest levels of play, a fourth official is a part of the crew.

Laws three & four: Players & Safety

Law three: Players

A professional match is played by two teams of up to 11 players; 11 on each side. If at any time a side has fewer than 7 players on the pitch, the match is ended.

In addition to the 11 starters, each team can nominate substitutes to their bench. For international matches, 6 subs can be named; for most professional matches, 7 substitutes can be named to the bench.

During the match, up to three substitutions can be made. Players subbed out cannot return to the match, meaning that at least 8 players will end up having to play the entire match, barring injuries. Subs can only be made during stoppage of play. Subs can also be made in case of injury, however if a team has used all 3 of their subs, they cannot bring on a new player, even in case of injury. A sub can also be made in case of a sending off.

Law four: Safety and equipment

During a match, player equipment includes a numbered jersey, shorts, cleats (sometimes called boots), stockings, and shin guards. Collectively, this equipment is called the player's kit. No other pads or equipment are worn. Each of the ten outfield players must wear the same kit, while each side's goalkeeper must wear a unique uniform in order to mark them out as the goalkeeper. Goalkeepers may also wear large, over-sized gloves.

Players who aren't wearing the appropriate kit can be sent off, or can be disallowed from play.

Laws One & Two: The field & the ball

In this series, we'll review the official laws of the game one or two at a time. Soccer has 17 official laws on the books (compare to American Football, which has over 300 rules and 10 rules about how to place a dead ball alone). The first two laws concern the rules for the field, and the rules for the ball.

Primer: The very basics of soccer

Compared to most other big team sports, soccer is exceedingly simple, perhaps explaining its popularity with youths. Teams of up to 11 compete, with the goal of trying to get a ball into a rectangular net. Each time the ball is scored, the scoring team records one goal; the team with the most goals at the end of time is the winner. That's it! That's all you really need to know to enjoy a match. Compared to American Football, baseball, or even basketball, that's not so tough, right?

In this article, we're going to discuss a few more of the basics of the sport. In the next article, we'll break down the rules a little more comprehensibly.

The biggest feature of soccer, and the reason why it's called football everywhere else in the world, is that the ball cannot be advanced by the use of hands. In fact, touching the ball with anything starting at your shoulders and ending at your fingertips is against the rules. Doing so is an infraction that leads to penalties of varying intensity, depending on the degree of touching, the intent of the player, etc. Touching the ball with any other part of the body is acceptable; generally the ball is advanced either with the feet or the head. The fact that players can't use their hands leads to some of the most graceful, interesting sport that you'll ever see.

A soccer team at the professional and other competitive levels, is made up of 11 players on each side. One of these players is the goalkeeper, or keeper for short, who is the only player allowed to use his hands during play. The keeper's job is to protect the goal and act as the last line of defense for his team. The other ten players on the team are called outfield players, to distinguish them from the keeper.

The other members of the team, who aren't currently involved in play, may sit on the bench and be used as substitutes. Unlike most other sports, the bench in soccer is fairly regulated, perhaps the one area of the game that has a higher rule count. A soccer club can have as many players as they wish signed to their club at any given time; however, come match time, only a certain number of those players can participate in the game. Besides the 11 starters, most high-level professional play allows only seven substitutes to be named to the bench, and of those, only three may eventually enter the game. Unlike basketball and football, subbing in soccer is permanent. Once a player leaves the game, he is not allowed to reenter it. This inability to stop and take a break for a bit means that soccer is one of the most physically grueling games to play and requires a great deal of stamina.

Soccer is officiated by a crew of at least three officials and at the professional level, four. One official, designated the head referee, runs up and down the field with the players during the game, keeping an eye out for infractions. The other two officials, dubbed assistant referees, stand on either sideline and are mainly responsible for making sure the offside rule is followed, and can also call attention to rule infractions, though this is rare. At the professional level, a fourth official participates and keeps track of the administrative aspects of the game - players report to him or her when they are subbed in, the fourth official watches the clock, etc.

These are the very basic things to know when getting ready to watch a match. In the next series of articles, I'll discuss the laws of the game one or two at a time. Unlike most other professional sports, soccer only has 17 laws of play. Compare to American football, which has more than 10 rules just about how the ball should be placed in a dead ball situation. I'm going to write in-depth about what each of these laws are and what they mean for the fan who wishes to follow the game.