Rules

Offsides

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,

Starting (and Restarting) Play

The ball leaves the field in soccer an awful lot, so you should familiarize yourself with how the game is restarted whenever this happens. The game is first started with a kick-off (after the aforementioned coin toss), in which the two teams are confined to their own halves and are arrayed loosely in one of the configurations we have already discussed.

Goal Kick: a free kick taken from anywhere within a small 6-yard box contained within the 18-yard penalty box, as long as it is on the same general side of the goal where the ball left the field. Usually, a defender or the goalie will take the goal-kick and belt the ball way back up to the other half — this is an effective defensive technique.

Corner: a free kick taken from the intersection of the sideline and the goal line (in other words, from the corner of the field), on the side of the field where the ball exited the field. The attacking team will usually station a number of players in front of the goal and then cross the ball into them from the corner. Simply having the ball so close to the goal is often a harrowing scenario for the defense, and many goals are scored off of corners.

Tie-Breaking

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.

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.