Soccer Archives - Page 12 of 17

What is a nutmeg in soccer?

Dear Sports Fan,

What is a nutmeg in soccer? And why does it have such a crazy name?

-Naomi

Dear Naomi,

Nutmeg is a colorful term used in soccer that refers to when one player directs the ball intentionally between the legs of another player. It’s similar to the ice hockey term, “five hole” which we wrote about earlier this week but the two are not interchangeable. Whether it’s a shot that goes between the goalie’s legs on its way into the net, a pass to a teammate that goes between a defenders legs, or if a player dribbles literally right through another player and keeps control of the ball, getting nutmegged is one of the most humiliating moments in soccer. Soccer is a very territorial sport. I often think of soccer teams as being made of a semi-viscous material that stretches between nodes centered on each player. To score in soccer, you need to find a point between players where the material is thin enough to be punctured. As an attacking team gets closer and closer to a defender, the material gets thicker and harder to break through. Going directly through a player is usually too difficult to even be worth attempting. A nutmeg is the ultimate breakdown of this rule. A defender who gets nutmegged has failed his or her team in the most basic way.

The derivation of the term nutmeg is a mystery with several plausible solutions. The Wikipedia entry on the topic and a 2005 article from The Guardian list the same three possibilities:

That it comes from the slang use of the word “nuts” to mean testicles. If the soccer players are male, then a nutmeg will involve the ball traveling directly under the nutmegged players nuts. It’s also plausible to think of it as a term of admiration referring to the brazenness of the player making the attempt.
The second possible derivation is that it stems from English rhyming slang that replaced the word “leg” with “nutmeg.” In this case, nutmeg refers to what the ball passes between instead of underneath.
The last possibility and the one that The Guardian likes the best, is that nutmeg gained its soccer meaning from an 1870s practice of deceit on the part of spice importers who would hide some wooden carvings in their shipments of nutmeg to lower their cost and raise their profits. This practice led to use of the word nutmeg to generally mean, “to be tricked or deceived, especially in a manner which makes the victim look foolish” which is a perfect match for how it feels to get nutmegged in soccer.

Whichever derivation you prefer, it’s interesting to see how many of the words for this action in other languages also have some element of food in them. All according to the same Wikipedia article:

In Hispanic America there are four words for nutmeg and three of them have a food element – caño which means spout, ordeñar which means milk, and cocina which literally means kitchen.
In Jamaica, it’s called salad.
Brazil has three words for it and one of them, rolinho, means little roll.
In Hungarian, the word for nutmeg is kötény which means apron.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a real blog post if I didn’t suggest another, totally unfounded, theory about nutmeg. Getting nutmegged is harmful in many ways. It’s humiliating to be faked out and beaten so badly. It’s also bad, potentially very damaging for the team to have allowed a player to go through what should have been a defensive stronghold. Perhaps nutmeg was an apt word to use because it too can be harmful. Nutmeg is not only a spice, it’s also a reasonably strong drug. A New York Times article from 2014 on the subject describes the experience of consuming too much nutmeg as “not exactly comatose, but… really sluggish.” Playing the ball through an opponent’s legs is the most effective way to make him or her look “not exactly comatose, but really sluggish.”

Could the use of the term nutmeg in soccer come from the experience or observation of a person suffering through a bad nutmeg trip? Who knows! It’s fun to think about. While you ponder, enjoy a highlight reel of some amazing nutmegs.

Thanks for asking,
Ezra

How do substitutions work in soccer?

Dear Sports Fan,

How do substitutions work in soccer? I have been watching a bunch of English Premier League soccer on TV and it seems like teams often make a bunch of substitutions right at the end of the game. I don’t know why they would do that — the game is basically over.

Thanks,
Della

Dear Della,

Great question! A substitution is when a player on the field is replaced by a player who has been sitting on the bench. Substitutions are a big part of the tactics of most of the sports we’re used to watching on TV. Football teams substitute players on almost every play. In basketball, there’s an official award given each year to the best substitute called the Sixth Man of the Year Award. Baseball substitutions are notoriously tactic-y, especially in the National League where teams substitute hitters in order to avoid having their pitcher at bat. Substitutions in soccer are less obvious tactically because of soccer’s fluidity of play and the restrictive nature of the rules that pertain to substitutions but they are important nonetheless. We’ll take a quick run through how substitutions work, why and how teams use them, as well as looking backwards and forwards through time to the history and potential future of substitutions in soccer.

How do Substitutions Work in Soccer?

A soccer team can choose to substitute a new player for one who has been playing at any point during a game. When the coach decides to make a substitution, he or she tells an official who hangs out near the team benches, and that official signals the referee. At the next dead ball (a stop in play that occurs when the ball goes out-of-bounds for a throw-in or goal-kick but not for a corner kick or a foul) the ref stops the game and allows the substitution to be made. There are two somewhat picky rules about this process. The substitute is supposed to wait at the side of the field at exactly the half-way line until the player who is being substituted for leaves the field completely. Refs are allowed to discipline (by giving yellow or red cards) players who violate these rules…

[begin detour] I never understood these rules when I played soccer — I thought they were an arbitrary way for the referee to establish superiority over the players. In researching this post though, I came across a funny thing in the Wikipedia article on substitutions in soccer:

The referee has no specific power to force a player to be substituted, even if the team manager or captain has ordered their player to be substituted. If a player refuses to be substituted play may simply resume with that player on the field.

So, that’s curious — if the ref can’t force a player to be substituted, then it makes sense to make the steps of substitution so formal and obvious. That way the ref can at least quickly identify when a player refuses to be substituted. In any event, this basically never happens, I just thought it was interesting. [end detour]

Two more rules make substitutions more interesting in soccer. First, a player who has been substituted cannot, once she or he has left the field, return to play. Not in the next half, not in overtime, not for a shootout. This is different from football and basketball but the same as baseball. Second, substitutions are very limited in number. At top competitive levels like the World Cup, British Premier League, Bundisliga, La Liga, even MLS, teams are only allowed three substitutions per game. There are no exceptions to this rule. If a team has used all three of their subs and a player on their team gets injured badly enough to have to leave the game, too bad, the team plays down one player. If a team has used all their subs and their goalie gets kicked out of the game, too bad, they cannot put a new goalie in although they can designate one of the regular players as a goalie and give her gloves and a different colored shirt.

Why and how do soccer teams use substitutions?

There are three main tactical reasons for a soccer team to make a substitution: removing an under-performing or injured player, shifting the team to be more offensive or defensive, or wasting time. Let’s start with the third, since that was the tactic you identified in your question. Substitutions take time to perform. The player being substituted for has to run (or walk, or saunter, or limp,) from wherever they are on the field to where the substitute is waiting to come on. A team that is winning that has substitutes left to use near the end of the game may choose to substitute mostly just to waste the time it takes to execute the substitution. When this is the intent of the substitution, you’ll see the player coming off the field move as slowly as he or she can without attracting the ire of the ref. He may wave at the crowd or clap in appreciation. She might slow down to hug a teammate or give some likely unnecessary instructions. This is a little cynical and it shouldn’t actually work since the ref keeps the official time and can simply pause his or her watch to counter-act the hijinks, but it’s still commonly attempted. The second tactic is making a substitution to shift the stance of the team to be more aggressive or more defensive. Based on the situation, a team might choose to play it safe by replacing an attacking player with a defensive one or gamble by taking a defender off the field and putting on an attacking striker. Other substitutions are made to replace a player who isn’t playing up to snuff based on an injury or just general malaise. Because substitutions are so limited, being forced to make one for injury or bad play is perceived as a bad thing for that team.

What is the history and future of substitutions?

Another thing I was surprised to learn from the Wikipedia article about substitutions is how recent of an innovation it is in soccer. Soccer has been around in one form or another for hundreds of years in Europe and possibly elsewhere before it was formalized in the mid 1800s in England. For close to a hundred years after the soccer rules were written up in 1863, substitutes were simply people who played in a game when some players on a team didn’t show up — you know, like they got stuck in a bad carriage-jam on the interstate. It wasn’t until the 1950s that substitutes were allowed during a game. Before then, an injured player was expected to either play on or put their team at a numerical disadvantage. The number of subs slowly increased until in 1995 when the rules were changed to allow for the current three.

We’re likely to see another change coming soon to modify the game to handle head-injuries better. One problem with limited the number of substitutes is that it gives an even greater incentive to players and teams to play through injuries, even potentially dangerous ones. As we learn more about concussions, we know that they are important to test for as soon as possible and that a player who suffers a second blow to the head after a concussion is in much greater danger than she was after the first injury. The problem with the current rules is that players don’t want to leave the field to be tested, much less to be substituted. We saw this a few times during the last World Cup when there were a couple of high-profile incidents with clearly dazed players playing for some time before eventually being removed. No one knows exactly how soccer will evolve, but something has to be done, and it will probably modify the way substitutions work.

Thanks for your question,
Ezra Fischer

2015 in the United States of Sports: Interactive

For the last week or two, I’ve been slowly adding features to the 2015 in the United States of Sports feature. First I designed a map and offered a free paper or .pdf copy in exchange for an email subscription. That deal is still going, by the way! Then I added a table showing all 51 (with Washington D.C.) events in a table view in order of date. This is an easier, albeit less beautiful, way of perusing the sporting events. Over my holiday vacation last week, I worked on my newest addition to the map, which I am releasing in this post. It’s an interactive Google map that looks just like the original map, but it’s interactive! Click on each of the states to see its event, date, and sport. As I preview all 51 events over the next year, I will add a link to the post in this interactive map. This interactive map will slowly become your guide to the biggest sporting events in each state during 2015!

Here’s the map:

Just watch out, unlike on the original, I was unable to transplant Alaska and Hawaii into the missing Mexican mainland. They are in their geo-normative positions in the interactive map.

The deal — get a free copy

If you’d like a paper or .pdf copy of the map, please subscribe to our email list and I will mail you one.

More to come

Keep your eyes peeled to this channel — by the end of New Year’s Day, three (three!) states’ biggest sporting event of 2015 will be in the rear-view mirror. I’ll have a preview of the Rose Bowl (California), Sugar Bowl (Louisiana), and Winter Classic (Washington D.C.) written and added to the interactive map by the time the ball drops on New Year’s Eve!

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

2015 in the United States of Sports: Calendar View

Last week, I released my little piece of annual sports data art work, a map showing the biggest sporting event in each of the 50 states. It was fun and painstaking to create. Some states, like Arizona where the Super Bowl is located in 2015, were easy to figure out. Some states, like my home state of New Jersey, which didn’t seem to be hosting any big sporting events in 2015, were much more difficult. The map itself was a delicate balance between too much data and not enough. I felt I had to get the name of the event and its starting date into the map. To keep those items legibly, I sacrificed the names of the states. We all know where Montana, Missouri, and Mississippi are, right? No? Yeah, me neither. So, to help out with deciphering the map and to add to the map experience, here is a list of all the top sporting events of 2015 sorted by date. The year starts with three big games on January 1, college football’s tradition heavy Rose Bowl in California and Sugar Bowl in Louisiana plus the National Hockey League’s biggest exhibition, the Winter Classic, this year in Washington D.C.

I’m going to keep adding to this map until the end of the year. To keep track of all the updates to the map, bookmark this page or follow the blog.

If you’d like a copy of the map, sign up for our email list and I will send you either a link to download a high quality .pdf or mail an actual physical copy to your home or office! If you’re already a subscriber and want a map, send me an email to dearsportsfan@gmail.com.

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2015 in the United States of Sports

With the new year approaching, I wanted to do something to celebrate the last year and look forward to 2015 with you all.

2014 has been an enormous year in sports and also for Dear Sports Fan. The year began with the NFL playoffs and a decisive Super Bowl win by the deserving Seattle Seahawks. The day after the big game, I took a train to John F. Kennedy airport, where I, like almost everyone who had been to the Super Bowl in New Jersey, waited while our planes were delayed by a snow storm. It was actually a pretty funny sight. All the gates to the Denver area were full of depressed people wearing orange and the gates to the West Coast were packed full of hung-over but happy fans wearing neon green. I flew off to Barcelona where I eventually and slowly made my way over to Russia for the 2014 Winter Olympics. In Russia, I got the chance to watch a bunch of men’s and women’s ice hockey plus some speed skating, curling, and cross-country skiing. It was all good, even when the United States lost to Canada 1-0 in the semifinals of the men’s Ice Hockey. Just a few months later, the nation’s imagination was captured by the most exciting World Cup in my memory. The United States Men’s National team did the country proud, more by generating bizarrely exciting soccer games than by winning, but still. The United States found itself in the throes of a soccer passion that mimicked, if not met the rest of the world’s normal experience. The summer was notable in the sports world for LeBron James deciding to return to the Cleveland Cavaliers, a tectonic shift in the power dynamics of the NBA. For Dear Sports Fan, and for myself, the biggest move of the summer was my decision to leave my job of seven and a half years and throw myself into working on Dear Sports Fan full-time. Since then it’s been a roller-coaster ride. The Kansas City Royals rode their way, bunting and bunting some more, to the World Series before falling to the San Francisco Giants. The focus of the NFL season blurred when off-season issues like domestic abuse, child abuse, institutional idiocy, and the long-term effects of concussions overwhelmed the normal focus on football, fantasy football, and gambling. Like these issues made football seem like an insignificant side-show, so the great cultural issue of police brutality and our legal system’s inability to properly deal with it made sports in general seem like an insignificant side-show.

That’s where we are as we begin to hurtle towards 2015. 2015 is a year of great promise and plentiful sports. To celebrate it with you all, I’ve created a map with the biggest sporting event in each state in 2015 labeled. The events were chosen by me, so your results may vary of course, but I’ll be happy to hear from you with all disputes of import. The events vary in size and national stature, of course. Minnesota may not have anything to match the national profile of Arizona’s Super Bowl, but that doesn’t mean their Star of the North Games in June are anything to sneeze at. In fact, with four to six thousand athletes competing in around twenty sports, the Star of the North Games are a massive undertaking. The sports range from the expected big four of football, baseball, basketball, and hockey, to more unusual events like New Jersey’s international Fistball competition and Delaware’s World Championship of Punkin’ Chunkin’ where teams compete to build the best pumpkin throwing machines.

The United States is truly a great sporting nation and 2015’s sports will truly range from the sublime to the ridiculous. Enjoy them all year with a copy of Dear Sports Fan’s 2015 in the United States of Sports map. If you’d like a copy of the map, sign up for our email list and I will send you either a link to download a high quality .pdf or mail an actual physical copy to your home or office! If you’re already a subscriber and want a map, send me an email to dearsportsfan@gmail.com.

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Thanks for the support,
Ezra Fischer

Why do soccer fans whistle?

Dear Sports Fan,

Why is it that when you watch a soccer game on TV, especially an international one, you always hear the crowd whistling? Why do soccer fans whistle? What does it mean?

Wondering,
Whitney

Dear Whitney,

When international soccer fans whistle, they are expressing displeasure with what they see on the soccer field. It’s very similar to how fans in the United States boo in sports stadiums, with only minor differences. I don’t really know why we use booing while most of the world whistles to express themselves in this way. As far as I can tell, there internet doesn’t know either.

You’ll hear wide-spread whistling from soccer fans for three main reasons:

The crowd disagrees with a foul the ref has called or not called
The crowd is holding a grudge against a particular player for some reason and he or she has the ball
The crowd feels a team is playing cynically through “simulating fouls” by diving or time wasting or playing too passively by passing the ball backwards excessively

It’s the last scenario that is a little different from how American fans using booing as a weapon. I would say booing is a little more aggressive and whistling a little more derisive. The only direct parallel to a crowd that whistles at their own team for playing too passively is a crowd that boos an American football team for running when they think they should throw or for conceding the end of a half when they think the team should try to score.

The roots of whistling to express these feelings are, as I mentioned before, pretty obscure. The Wikipedia page about whistling gives plenty of speculative meat to chew on even if it doesn’t make any of its own conclusions. In its section on superstition, Wikipedia states that whistling “is thought to attract bad luck, bad things, or evil spirits” in many cultures. Examples given are in the UK, where whistling is thought to “foretell death or a great calamity” and in Russia and its surroundings where whistling indoors is “believed to bring poverty”. I imagine that the flip side of repressing your whistling instincts to avoid bad things happening to you would be wanting to whistle aggressively in situations (like sporting events) where you fervently (if somewhat light-heartedly, I hope) wish bad things would happen to others.

As for why international soccer fans whistle to express negativity while American fans boo, I do have a wild guess. In American arenas, even during the most exciting games, the prevailing noise is applause, rhythmic but non-melodic chants, or scattered, disorganized shouting. In international soccer arenas, the prevailing soundtrack of the games is the organized singing of fans supporting their teams. If you’re trying to cut through the normal background noise to express your displeasure, a long, drawn out “boooooooooo” on one tone might work against the noise of an American sporting event but it definitely won’t against the singing of an international soccer game. A high-pitched whistle on the other hand is shrill and loud enough to break through even the most fervent supporters song.

Hope this answers your question,
Ezra Fischer

Five rules for being a fan of the away team

Dear Sports Fan,

I’m a Boston Celtics fan living in Charlotte, North Carolina. I’ve got tickets to see my team play later this week and I’m super excited about it. But then I started thinking about going to the game and I realized that I don’t really know how to act or what to wear. Can you help?

Thanks,
Kirk

Dear Kirk,

You are a sports fan. You spend dozens of hours watching your team on television. You read about your team obsessively, you follow players on twitter, you know the names of your team’s beat writers, and you have more than three bits of team paraphernalia in your closet or on your walls. You don’t live in your team’s city anymore (or maybe you never have) but you haven’t let that stop you from rooting for them. Finally, your team comes to town and you splurge for some tickets. You’re excited to see your team play in person. It’s the day of the game and suddenly, you starting thinking… oh man, what am I going to wear? How should I act? Is everything going to be cool? I’m rooting for the away team tonight. How should I act?

It’s an age old conundrum: how should you act as a fan for the away team?

I’m going to a hockey game as a fan of the away team tonight, so this is something I’ve been thinking about today. At first I thought I would write this piece with a certain amount of uncertainty. “I’m not sure what I think,” I thought I should write, “but here are the variables in play.” Actually though, the more I think about it, the more I feel certain that I do know how one should act as an away team. When you are a fan of an away team, you are basically a guest in someone’s house. You should act accordingly. Here are five rules for being a fan of the away team:

By all means, wear your team colors, but do it with restraint. A hat or scarf is great. A jersey is fine. A full team warmup suit accompanied with team pom-poms and face paint? That’s a little too much. Save that for when you are going to a home game.
The same holds for your behavior. Don’t get belligerently drunk and scream. That type of behavior is permissible (some might say ideal) when you are rooting for the home team, but as an away team fan, you should be more demure. Applaud your team. Cheer when they score. But you know what? Stand and applaud when the other team scores too. You’re watching with thousands of people for whom that is a good thing. If you want them to welcome you, show that you appreciate their hospitality.
Don’t try to affect the game. Home teams deserve to have the advantage of being supported by their fans. In most sports, this advantage simply consists of the emotional boost players get from hearing the support of their fans. In a few sports though, fans have more direct ways to try to affect the game — by making it impossible for offenses to communicate in football or by distracting a free throw shooter in basketball. It’s not your right to do this as an away fan. You’re already limiting the impact of home court by taking a loyal supporters’ seat and you don’t have to apologize for that but you don’t get to try to impact the game as if you were at home.
Being an away fan does not make you a legitimate target. Good natured ribbing is fine and can be enjoyable, but you should not put up with intimidation or abuse. If you do find yourself the target of anything from a crude or mean-spirited home fan, be firm but do not escalate. Either ignore them or remind them that you’re simply a visitor who want to watch the game and support her or his team. Ask them how they would like to be treated if they traveled to an away game with their team. If things get bad, don’t be afraid to move away from them or appeal to a stadium worker for support. There are almost always other seats that you can move to.
Be knowledgeable. This goes back to acting like a good guest. It wouldn’t be nice to show up at someone’s house for dinner and not know their children’s names, what they do for work, or why they walk with a limp. That’s what you’re doing if you show up as an away fan and you don’t know the home team’s record, players, coach, history, and traditions. You don’t need to go overboard and memorize everything, but take a quick glance at the standings, a team depth chart or roster, and the team’s wikipedia page before you go. It gives you something to talk about with the people who will be sitting around you.

Sports allegiances always come down to coincidences: where you were born, who your parents were and who they rooted for, or what teams were winning championships when you were around nine years old. The relationships you create with people, even if they are only for a few hours while you watch a sports game, are more important than your devotion to a team. Being a fan of an away team can be a tricky balancing act, but it is worth it. Have fun!

Thanks,
Ezra Fischer

2014 Major League Soccer Cup preview

This Sunday is not just Week 14 of the NFL season and the first weekend of many people’s fantasy football playoffs, it’s also the day of the Major League Soccer championship game. The 2014 MLS Cup will be held in Carson, California, at the StubHub Center at 3 p.m. ET. The game between the Los Angeles Galaxy and the New England Revolution will be televised live on ESPN. It will be viewed by a sold-out crowd of 27,000 and a few hundred thousand soccer fans on TV. Any single elimination championship game is compelling but this game is even more interesting than most. Coverage of the game is split between those looking at the game as a small lens through which to view the larger story of Major League Soccer and United States soccer in general and those who are focusing on the game as a culmination of months or years of effort. We’ll do a little of both in our preview here, starting with the macro view and then zooming into the micro.

The larger story

The game on Sunday is the 19th MLS Cup. It’s a time to reflect on the history of the league and the current state of soccer in the United States. You might think that next year’s 20th anniversary would be a better time for reflection, but there are forces at work making this year particularly interesting. Major League Soccer began in 1995, the year after the United States hosted the World Cup. And that’s no coincidence, it was very much a part and parcel of hosting the Cup. This year, fans in our country embraced the U.S. Men’s National Soccer team like never before. The team captured the imagination and affection of both die-hard soccer fans and complete soccer neophytes. In the aftermath of the World Cup, interest or at least curiosity about MLS has been high. The league has seen some very positive signs this year. According to a Wall Street Journal story about the league, there has been a 26% increase in television viewership from last season and signed a $720 million dollar television deal with Fox, ESPN, and Univision. There is talk of expanding into at least one, maybe two other markets in addition to the opening of a second franchise in New York, New York FC, which will begin play next year.

On the other hand, the league has taken a few hard knocks during the year as well. Chivas USA, an interesting experiment with having an MLS team function as a second tier part of a Mexican League club’s organization, has failed. The team was purchased by a new ownership group but it will shut its doors for a year or two before re-opening. The United States Men’s National Team coach, Jurgen Klinsmann has been public in his criticism of the league, which can’t be good for the MLS since he’s one of the more well respected soccer figures in the country. There’s also just continuing weirdness that makes the MLS seem like a subpar league. In order to get Manchester City’s owners to invest in NYFC, the league promised they would have special privileges in terms of transferring young players back and forth between New York and Manchester. Add that to the weirdness around bidding between teams for high profile players like Michael Bradley and Jermaine Jones and you’ve got a consistent stream of information that suggests the MLS is not sufficiently interested in fair play.

The actual game

If you set the larger picture aside, this game is revealed as being unusually interesting. It’s one of those games where, unless you’re a fan of one of the teams involved, it’s almost impossible to pick a team to root for. Here are some reasons to root for each team.

Why to root for the Los Angeles Galaxy

There’s one main reason to root for the Galaxy and its Landon Donovan. This championship game will be Donovan’s last competitive soccer game. He is retiring from play after the game. You probably recognize Donovan’s name. He’s been the face of U.S. Soccer for the last dozen years. He has been one of the best players and leaders of the men’s national team during that time and scored the most dramatic and memorable goal in international competition since 1989. He’s played with the Galaxy since 2007 and, despite the international presence of David Beckham on the team, has been a central figure in their history throughout. He’s also a very interesting person. He took a brief hiatus from soccer in 2013 for psychological reasons, something that most athletes don’t do. One of my favorite sports writers, Brian Phillips, wondered in 2013 whether Donovan is even “happy playing soccer?” Earlier this year, following Donovan’s last game on the U.S. Men’s National Team, Phillips returned to writing about Donovan:

It’s not so easy to achieve emotional fusion with your avatar-champion when everything from the tension in his jaw to the way his eyes keep flicking to one side of the frame suggests there’s stuff going on with him he doesn’t want you to see.

In his final go around with the national team (after becoming a sympathetic figure when coach Klinsmann left him off the 2014 World Cup roster) and the Galaxy, Donovan has finally achieved a status he almost definitely never sought: emotional fan favorite.

Why to root for the New England Revolution

A long-suffering Boston team has a chance to end a period of losing but to do so they’ll have to beat the winningest team in league history. Sounds familiar, right? It was the sports plot that drove interest in the Boston Red Sox in the Major Baseball league for years or even decades before the Sox finally broke through the hated Yankees to win the World Series in 2004. The New England Revolution will be playing the role of the Red Sox in this drama on Sunday. The Revolution are the only original Major League Soccer team to never have won the Championship or the Supporter’s Shield given to the team with the best regular season record. To break their drought, they’ll have to beat the Galaxy… who play the role of the Yankees in the MLS. The Galaxy have won four championships, four Supporter’s Shields, and several other tournaments. They are playing in their third championship game in four years and they’ve won two of three so far. And, the Galaxy is going to be playing in their home stadium where they haven’t lost since the first game of the season.

If it sounds hopeless, well, it’s not. The Revolution are on a streak as well. They are 11-1-2 since the mid-season acquisition of Jermaine Jones. Jones was the best player not named Tim Howard on the U.S. Men’s National team this past summer at the World Cup. If you don’t remember who he is, he was the one who did this. He’s a completely solid midfielder, brilliant on offense and defense, and a physical presence wherever he goes. He’s joined by two clever attacking players, Lee Nguyen and Charlie Davies. Both Nguyen and Davies have wonderful redemption stories and are easy to root for. Nguyen made is international debut in 2007 for the U.S. team. After a few games, he fell out of favor and left the country to pursue his soccer career first in Europe and then in Vietnam where he is a dual citizen. He returned to the U.S. in 2012 and has flourished for the Revolution, so much so that he was finally asked back for a set of international games this year. Davies was also a promising young international player but his fall from grace was more violent. In 2009, Davies was involved in a terrible car crash. One woman in car (neither she nor Davies were driving) was killed and Davies suffered a litany of injuries including a broken tibia, fibia, and elbow, various facial fractures and a lacerated bladder. Despite that, he recovered in time to make a semi-serious push to rejoin the national team for the 2010 World Cup. He didn’t quite make it back and, indeed, has never quite been the same player since. The player he has become though, is still able to wreak havoc on defenses from time to time. We’ll see if its enough to beat the Galaxy on Sunday.

What kinds of set pieces are there in soccer?

This is part two of our answer to a question about soccer set pieces. In the first section, we covered what a set piece is, how valuable they are, and delved into why some teams practice them more than others. In this section we’ll describe in some detail the major types of set pieces.

Dear Sports Fan,

What is a set play in soccer?

Thanks,
Kimberly

Dear Kimberly,

Soccer has a variety of types of set pieces. Now that you know generally what a set piece is and why it is unique and important, it’s time to describe the different types of set pieces. Let’s take a look at each one.

Corner Kick

When the ball goes out of bounds over the goal line and the last player to touch it was on the defensive team, a corner kick is given. The ball is put at the corner (no kidding) of the field and the offensive team gets to kick it in from there. Corner kicks are one of the most valuable set plays for the offense. It’s a free chance to swing a ball, in the air, into the penalty box right near the goal and try to head it in. Teams that get a corner kick frequently try to increase the odds of their team being the first to hit the incoming corner kick in the air but getting all of their tallest players in there. Since defenders are usually the biggest players on the field, this often means that some defenders move up when there is a corner and shorter offensive players move back to replace them. As a former defender, I can say that this is good fun for the defense. It also leaves the team that gets the corner kick a little vulnerable to a quick counter-attack since their best defensive players are all the way up near the goal they are trying to score on.

Sometime, the team with the corner kick will choose to play a “short corner”. Instead of a crossing the ball into the penalty area, one player on the offensive team will spring towards the corner of the field to receive a short pass from their teammate with the ball. Usually, this is a tactic to create a more favorable angle to cross the ball from as opposed to a complete rejection of the idea of crossing the ball. I have a personal grudge against the short corner and tend to get pretty upset when I see teams do it. I don’t think the benefit of the better angle is worth the cost of potentially losing the chance to send a ball into the box.

Goal Kick

A goal kick is what happens when the ball goes over a goal line and it was last touched by a player on the attacking team. The ball is placed within the smaller of the two rectangles around the goal, called the goal box, and a player (usually the goalie) has a free chance to kick the ball back into play from there. In professional or high-level amateur play, this set piece is not all that interesting or important. Goalies are able to pass the ball accurately to a defensive player or boom the ball halfway down the field (or more!) to an offensive player. In youth soccer, the goal kick is a little more exciting because kids usually cannot kick the ball as far or as well. In youth soccer, I remember the offensive teams lining up eagerly on the edge of the larger rectangle around the goal, the penalty box, and trying to intercept the goal kick and quickly transition to offense.

Throw In

When the ball goes out of bounds on one of the sidelines (also called touchlines) the team that did not touch the ball last gains possession of the ball and is granted a throw in. The throw in is exciting because it’s the one time when non-goalie soccer players get to touch the ball with their hands! Eh… actually, it’s not such a big deal. Any soccer player worth her weight, even in some non-precious metal like tin, is able to kick the ball much farther, faster, and more accurately than they can throw it. Most throw ins therefore become a quick exercise in maintaining possession. Usually, the player throwing the ball in will look for a teammate running towards him and throw the ball to that person who quickly taps it back to the thrower who is then free to do whatever they want with it. It’s all about getting the ball back into the field and in control of your team. When an offensive team has a throw in near the goal their trying to score on, close to where they would take a corner kick from, they may choose to treat the set piece like a corner that just has to be thrown instead of kicked. There’s usually someone on each team who can do a “long throw” and send the ball into the center of the field with as much pace as possible.

There are rules about how the ball should be thrown: Both feet have to be on the ground when the ball leaves the throwers hands. The ball must be held with two hands and the two arms have to move in parallel to eliminate putting tricky spin on the ball. You rarely ever see referees enforce these rules at the professional level but in youth soccer throw in fouls get called all the time.

Free Kicks

When a foul is called in the course of play, the ref stops play and the ball is placed at the spot of the foul. The team whose player has been fouled (or dove convincingly…) gets to put the ball back into play from that spot. When a foul is called anywhere far from the goal the team is trying to score on, the free kick is usually a quick deal. Simple possession of the ball is worth more than the chance to kick the ball a long way without being guarded, so teams with free kicks in their own half of the ball just pass it to an open teammate and keep the game moving. A free kick anywhere in the offensive third of the goal is one of the most valuable moments in the entire soccer game. Teams that get a free kick like this usually take their time, and then execute. Meanwhile, defensive teams try to counteract this by setting up themselves. Some defenders will take responsibility for preventing an offensive player from getting onto the end of a free kick pass while others set themselves up ten yards from the ball in a wall to prevent an easy free kick shot.

Free kicks are divided into two types: direct and indirect. Direct kicks are most common and there’s no restriction on what offensive teams can do with them. Indirect kicks are given for less serious fouls that violate a technical rule as opposed to a safety rule. Examples of fouls that result in an indirect kick are being offside, insulting a ref, or if the goalie touches the ball with her hands when she’s not allowed to. Indirect kicks are the same as direct kicks except two players have to touch the ball before a goal is allowed to be scored. Teams either use indirect kicks to pass the ball, often like a corner kick, or they set up two players near the ball and convert the kick into a direct kick by having one player touch the ball a tiny bit and then the other shoot the ball.

Penalty Kick

A penalty kick is a special type of set piece. The ref calls for a penalty kick when a foul which otherwise would result in a direct free kick is committed by a team within their own penalty box. The penalty kick is extraordinarily valuable. It’s like nothing else in sports, really. 85% of penalty kicks result in goals. That’s better than the league average for a free throw in the NBA! Okay, sure, the extra point in football is made close to 100% of the time but one goal in soccer is worth so much more than one point in football. The penalty kick is unlike any other set piece in soccer — so much so, that most people probably don’t think of it as a set piece at all. If you want to learn more about it, read our article all about penalty kicks.

There you go — that’s probably more than you bargained for about set pieces in soccer,
Ezra Fischer

What is a set piece in soccer?

Dear Sports Fan,

What is a set play in soccer?

Thanks,
Kimberly

Dear Kimberly,

A set piece in soccer is any play that begins with the ball at a standstill following a stoppage resulting from the ball going out of bounds or a foul being called. Set pieces or set plays are unique in soccer because they are the only times when the ball is in the complete possession of one team, without the other team being allowed to try to get it from them. The team with the ball has all the time they want, within reason, to set themselves up in whatever position or formation they want before they put the ball back into play. Set pieces are much rarer in soccer than in other sports. American football is on the other extreme end of the spectrum. Football has only set plays — everything stops and starts between each play. Baseball is the same way. Basketball approaches soccer’s fluidity but there are far more stoppages between plentiful baskets, fouls, and time-outs.

Set pieces in soccer are very valuable. Over the past five years or so, the percentage of goals scored during set plays in top-flight soccer has varied from around 25% to close to 50%. One quarter to one half of all goals scored in soccer are the result of set plays! In the 2014 World Cup, the championship team, Germany, averaged a set play goal per game, the highest in the tournament.

For something that’s so important, it’s surprising that there is such variation in how teams think about and practice set plays. Some teams practice them obsessively and even study how opposing teams try to defend them so they can use their opportunities even more effectively. Other teams look like they’re almost… well, winging them — playing them by ear. Trusting to the instincts and ideas of players on the field to figure out what to do with them as they come up. I have two potential theories for why this is.

The first is a cultural theory and it absolutely relies on gross national stereotypes, so it’s worth saying that I believe these tendencies are completely fluid and have absolutely nothing to do with anything integral to the people involved. For whatever reason, some national traditions of soccer are more focused on fluid play than others. English soccer is on one extreme — the English tend to play long ball, kicking the ball far in the air and then going up to get it. As such, the English are more likely to practice free kicks obsessively as an extension of their historic/cultural tendencies. The Brazilians are the opposite. They’re traditionally known for playing a fluid style based more on short passing, movement off the ball, and brilliant individual skill. Brazilian teams would stereotypically be less likely to spend time in practice working on set pieces because they are kind of the antithesis of how they like to play. Of course, just to make sure we don’t go too far overboard with this theory, we have the counter-example of the Brazilian fullback Roberto Carlos who was one of the best on set pieces ever:

I experienced a tiny microcosm of the cultural theory as a kid. My youth team was coached by a Guatemalan immigrant and we barely ever practiced set pieces. The teams we played against, particularly one run by a German-American group, had clearly practiced them a lot.

The second theory is that set pieces are a chance for less skilled teams to beat more skilled teams, so they are the ones that practice set pieces more. Keeping possession of the ball in a soccer game is all about talent. Creating a goal in the flow of the game is a challenge that can only be achieved with dominant skill or incredible luck. Set pieces, however, can be done with mostly precision and discipline. As The Guardian suggested in a 2009 article on this subject, there’s “a feeling that the top sides do not need to expend so much time and energy working on breaking down opponents through set-pieces when the goals tend to flow so easily from open play.” Whether it’s true or not, there’s a sense that practicing set pieces can only happen to the detriment of developing more important facets of the game. This is an argument sometimes used against how the United States develops soccer players.

Soccer has a variety of types of set pieces. Tomorrow, we’ll go into detail on each type of set piece: the corner kick, goal kick, free kick, and penalty kick.

Until then,
Ezra Fischer