Learn How to Play Soccer

The game that is loved world-wide is a simple, challenging, and breathtaking sport (literally). The game is far more free-flowing and has nowhere near the billions of rules that Americans put out so much in football and baseball. The objective of the game is for your team to score more goals than the other team. Each team consists of eleven players who can score a goal by moving a ball into the opponents net with the use of any part of their body except their arms and hands.

Each game lasts 90 minutes which are divided into two halves of 45 minutes each. The clock does not run when the ball is out of play (when it is kicked off the field or picked up by the referee for an injury). If the game is tied at the end of the 90 minutes, it is usually just scored as a tie unless it is a competition when it is necessary to determine a winner like the World Cup.

The most important piece of equipment you will need for a game of soccer is a foot and the ball. The official soccer ball is made of leather and weighs 14-16 ounces. While having a ball is more or less critical to the sport, anything is good to just kick around except babies and puppies. Soccer fields are required for the serious players which are similar to US football fields in dimension, between 50-100 yards wide and between 100-130 yards long. At both end is a goal, threaded with a net and on the four corners are flags. A coin is important at the beginning to be tossed and forecasted as a way of initiating the game. The referee calls the two captains to the center of the field before the game begins and asks the home captain to call the coin in the air. Whoever wins the toss has the option of determining either which team kicks off or which side each team plays on.

Each player will need to have a pair of football shoes, or cleats as they are called in the U.S. Every player is also required to wear a pair of shin guards, which are exactly what you would think: a hard plastic pad surrounded by softer fabric that extends from below the knee to above the ankle, secured usually by velcro straps, which are designed to avoid fractures to the shin, because in this game it's common when everyone is kicking all the time.

As for the players, there are eleven players on each side, whom one is a goalkeeper and has different rules to that position. The goalkeeper is the only one that can touch the ball with his hands. Their objective is to block any shots from entering their teams' goal. But the goalie cannot use his hands outside of an area called the penalty box.

In front of the goalkeeper is usually a row of four players who are defenders. On the left and right, you have the left full back and right full back, and between them, you have a center back or central defender. The fourth defender often plays slightly behind the center back, and is called a sweeper, because his or her job is to sweep up any defensive work that the three others cannot handle. In front of the defense, you have midfield, which refers collectively to the three of four players who operate in the middle of the field, between the defenders and attackers. These players are responsible for defending when needed, and for winning the ball in the many opportunities in the middle of the field.

The front line consists of forwards and attackers. These are the people that mainly score. On the sides are left-wing and right-wing and center-forwards or strikers. These players are known for their and ability to score goals and the wingers are often used to cross the ball with accuracy into the middle of the field where the strikers, or midfielders, should be positioned to take a shot on goal.

The game is regulated by one head official, called the referee, who operates in the center of the field. He or she is assisted by two linesmen, whose job it is to monitor whether the ball has left the field by crossing over the sidelines or the goal lines. Since the entire ball must cross the plane of the field, either in the air or on the ground, it can often be difficult for the referee to determine whether and where precisely the ball has gone out, so the linesmen use flags to indicate the fact of the ball's departure and the direction of which team now has possession.

Most fouls in soccer are pretty straightforward: if you fight with the other guy, it's a foul. One violation that is not so obvious is "offsides." An attacking player can stand in a position in relation to the defenders that places him offsides, and if he is then passed the ball in that offsides position, the referee will whistle the violation and the defending team will be awarded an indirect free kick from the point of the infraction. The purpose of this rule is to prevent forwards from hanging around in front of the opposing goal all day, just waiting for a long pass to collect and then be in a sweet position to belt home a goal.

In competitions where it is necessary to determine a winner, however, there are two primary ways to break the tie: by playing extra time or by a penalty shoot-out. Different tournaments use different variations of these options, though many use both, starting with extra time and going to penalties if they are needed. Extra time simply involves having the teams play another mini-game, divided into two 15 minute halves. Extra time is not usually played "sudden death," in which the games ends as soon as one team scores first; rather, the full 30 minutes of extra time is played and only if one team is ahead at the end will it be deemed the winner, just like in basketball.

Hope you understand and appreciate the next soccer game you watch. It's not really boring if you know what's going on. I think you can enjoy it if 5 billion people can.