SOCCER
Before we discuss the rules, though, you'll need to know the objective of the game. Very simply, it 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. You've seen it, you know what we're talking about
Each game lasts 90 minutes, divided into two halves of 45 minutes each. Technically, 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 a substitution or injury — so each half typically runs for more than just 45 minutes. This principle is just like the timing you see in most American sports; e.g., basketball games go on for much longer than just 48 minutes. In soccer, though, the halves rarely go on for much more than 45 minutes — usually the added time or injury time is less than five minutes, but it is up to the referee's discretion. If the game is tied at the end of the 90 minutes, usually it is simply scored as a tie (a la hockey). But what happens in a competition when it is necessary to determine a winner? The tie gets broken by using special rules about extra time and penalty kicks.
The single most important piece of equipment you will need for a game of soccer is a foot. After that, the ball is important too. No surprises there, since the game is football — and unlike US football (in which only the lamest players do anything to a ball with their feet), it is appropriately named. The official soccer ball is made of leather, is 27-28" in circumference, and weighs 14-16 ounces. While having a ball is more or less critical to the sport, you may want to bear in mind the fact that Diego Maradona — arguably one of the greatest players ever — grew up in Argentina playing with a clump of rags, and that the Brazilian national team — unarguably the greatest soccer playing country ever — often practices with tennis balls.
If you want to take things very seriously, though, you'll need another piece of equipment: a very large field. Soccer fields are similar to US football fields in dimension, between 50–100 yards wide and between 100–130 yards long. At either end is a goal, threaded with a net, and on the four corners of the field are flags.
Another piece of equipment vital to the game is a coin, 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 teams plays on. The loser is then assigned the remaining choice.
Beyond the institutional equipment, each player will need to have a pair of football shoes, or cleats as they are called in the US. That, of course, assumes the game is being played on grass. If the game is on turf, the players will wear flats, common amongst non-soccer playing undergraduates. 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, designed to avoid fractures to the shin, which is so vulnerable in a sport where everyone is kicking all the time.
So with the equipment secured, we need to assemble a team. There are eleven players on each side, of whom one is a goalkeeper and, as such, is governed by slightly different rules. The most important distinction is that a goalkeeper is the only player who can touch the ball with his hands (for the sake of easy reading, let's assume it's a boy goalkeeper). In fact, since goalkeepers are charged with preventing the ball from crossing their goal, they do an awful lot of touching with the hands. There are a few limitations on all this handtouching: first, a goalie cannot use his hands outside of an area called the penalty box, which is a box 18 yards deep affixed to the goal line within his own half; second, the goalie cannot use his hands if the ball is passed to him intentionally by one of his own defenders. This second rule was instituted to avoid excruciatingly boring games in which a team with a lead would preserve it by kicking the ball back to their goalie chronically.
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 the sweeper, because his or her job is to sweep up any defensive work that the three others cannot handle. Captain Obvious says, "As the last line of defense, this player is usually an excellent defender."
In front of the defense, you have the midfield, which refers collectively to the three of four players who operate in the middle of the field, between defenders and attackers. Unimpaired by overactive imaginations, soccer's founders have named these positions left-half, center-half (or center-midfield), and right-half. These players are responsible for defending when needed, and for winning the ball in the many skirmishes that occur in the middle of the field. When the ball falls into their team's possession, midfielders are responsible for orchestrating the attack by passing amongst themselves and ultimately giving the ball to forwards who may be well-positioned to score.
The front line consists of forwards or attackers. Perhaps because of their goal-scoring, these players have slightly more interesting monikers. On the sides, there are the left-wing and right-wing, and in the center, there are the center-forwards or strikers. These players are known for their speed and ability to score goals. 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. Strikers are renowned for their ability to score goals with either foot and their head — although central midfielders are often the quarterbacks on a soccer team, it is the successful striker who is usually the fans' favorite.
Although the most common configurations are 3-5-2 (three defenders, five midfielders, and two forwards, in addition to the goalie, of course) and 4-4-2 (four defenders, four midfielders, and two forwards), these positions are eminently flexible and there are no restrictions on movement. That means a team that needs to score can switch to a 1-3-3-4 configuration, and one that wants to defend a lead may switch to a 1-4-4-2 format. These variations should not be taken too literally, since strikers may be called to defend, with their skill at getting to a ball obviously a useful asset on either end of the field.
The Officials
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.
Fouls
When a player commits a foul (kicks another player, touches the ball with his hands, or breaks any other rule), the referee will either award the other team a free kick or call for advantage. For instance, if Team A's forward is dribbling with a ball toward goal, but just before he gets a shot off, he is kicked in the knee by a Team B defender, the referee has a two choices:
CHOICE 1: His first choice is to blow the play dead with his whistle, bring the ball back to where the foul occurred, and let Team A have a free kick. (see below)
CHOICE 2: His second choice is to take a quick second to determine whether Team A's forward is unimpaired by the foul and still is in good position to shoot. If he is, the referee will call out "advantage," which lets the players know he saw a foul occur but that in his view, the victim of the foul would actually be harmed by having the play stopped. If the Team A forward goes ahead and shoots but misses, that's too bad -- he doesn't then get the free kick. The window for calling the foul is just a second or two, and if advantage is called, the foul evaporates. Of course, if the foul was egregious, the referee can still upbraid the Team B defender after the ball has left play.
Free Kicks
OK, free kicks are kinda tricky, so we will make extensive use of analogy. Now, when a player breaks a rule in basketball, the opposing team sometimes gets a free-throw. Similarly, when a player breaks a rule in soccer, a member from the opposing team gets to kick the ball from a stationary position with no opposing player closer than 10 yards from the ball — a free kick. Free kicks are awarded from the position of the infraction, and anyone on the victim's team can take the kick. The majority of free kicks are short passes, made quickly just to get the game going again - But when the free kick is from a dangerous position (that is, near the goal), you start to see set plays develop. These set plays usually involve someone who is an accurate passer taking the free kick and crossing the ball in the air to a few teammates who are running into a position where they call volley the ball with their head or foot into the goal.
A free kick from anywhere within 25 yards is dangerous business for the defending team because there are players who specialize in scoring from those long range kicks. In fact, some of the most spectacular goals in soccer are scored off just these set plays. What you will commonly see in a soccer game, therefore, is the defending team assemble a "wall" in front of the kick. That is, several defenders will stand in a row, blocking the kicker's view of their goal. This wall, of course, must be at least 10 yards from the ball. Typically, the defending goalie will oversee the architecture of the wall — he usually places a wall of 4 or 5 players to cover one side of the goal, while he takes the other. This way, when the kicker takes the free kick, he will either kick the ball toward a relatively small area of open space of the goal, which the goalie has covered, or he will belt it ineffectually into the wall. The most spectacular goals in soccer are the ones in which the kicker kicks the ball around the wall and into the section of the goal farthest from the goalie — yes, that's right, around the wall. A soccer ball can be skillfully curved, and the best players can put enormous spin on the ball with both velocity and accuracy, leaving goalies stand feebly to watch the ball curl into the net.
And just when you thought it was safe to go back on the field, we must reveal that there are actually TWO kinds of free kicks: direct and indirect. "Direct" kicks are ones that where the ball is allowed travel directly into the net to score. "Indirect" kicks are ones where a player in addition to the kicker must first touch the ball before it travels into the next to be considered a goal. The spectacular goals are almost always scored off direct kicks, since the wall is 10 yards away and is more or less frozen when the kicker belts the ball. On an indirect kick, the kicker must either lob the ball into a danger area — but bear in mind that a goalie (who can use his hands) will almost always have an advantage over an attacker — or must make a wimpy little pass to someone who will then fire a goal. Of course, once this little tap pass is made, the defenders in the wall can rush the shooter, greatly cutting down the angle and usually successfully blocking the kick.
This leads us to ask the almighty question: when do you get a direct kick, and when do you get an indirect kick? Not surprisingly, it depends on the severity of the foul. You have to commit a more serious foul to be punished with a direct. They are awarded for flagrant fouls, such as kicking, tackling from behind, spitting, pulling shirts, and the ever-feared handball. An indirect is awarded for less serious things like dangerous play (high kicking at someone's knees), obstruction, and offsides.
Into this mush, we add one more type of kick: a penalty kick. It has three main characteristics:
Whenever a foul occurs within the penalty box (the box that extends 18 yards from the goal line), where the foul happened has nothing to do with where the kicker takes his kick. If a defender commits any foul within the penalty box that merits a direct free kick, the offending team doesn't take the kick from the site of the infraction.
The defending team does not get to set up a wall. Instead, the referee orders the penalty area cleared of all but two players: the kicker and the goalie.
The ref will next place the ball on the penalty mark, a soccer ball-sized dot 13 yards from the center of the goal. The set up looks kind of like a free throw: you have a kicker addressing the ball from the penalty spot, a nervous looking goalie standing 13 yards away wondering how he's possibly going to stop a goal here, and hordes of other defenders and attackers lined up on the edge of the penalty box just waiting to pounce on the ball if it is blocked by the goalie or bounces off the goal. Just like free throws, the presumption is that the kicker will score; if a goalie saves a penalty, it is cause for much celebration and the removal of sports bras. Oh, and the kicker is usually vilified and, if South American, he may… "disappear."