12/21/24
June 23, 2019
SportsFilter: The Sunday Huddle:
A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.
During the France - Brazil match, I began to think that the referee was fortunate that the teams were playing in LeHavre. If Brazil had ended up winning that game, she could have hopped on the nearest container ship and hightailed it for Halifax while outraged French fans scoured the countryside trying to determine her whereabouts.
Also, the French team needs to reconsider those pajama tops. Or did they get those from a hospital laundry hamper?
posted by beaverboard at 09:40 PM on June 23, 2019
the first time I've seen an indirect free kick
You have seen tons of indirect free kicks, as offside calls are restarted from indirect free kicks. Probably your first indirect free kick inside the penalty area. Indirect Free Kicks are also used as restart after dangerous plays (high kicks or low headers where contact is not made) and obstruction (screening an opponent from playing the ball or like when American Football WR run a pick play, almost never called, possibly how England player was so wide open on corner kick goal)
Other rule nuance on that free kick in the Cameroon-England game, because the infraction happened inside the 6-yard box, the indirect free kick was taken from the edge of that box, not the spot it happened.
posted by prof at 10:57 AM on June 24, 2019
Thanks for the correction.
It was a beautiful kick. It made me wonder if Cameron had a better chance to stop the shot if their players were spaced evenly on the line.
posted by rcade at 01:24 PM on June 24, 2019
Thanks for the correction. Soccer coach in me :)
a better chance to stop the shot if their players were spaced evenly on the line
Possibly, though the ball just needs to touch another player. So, playing a ball off a defender is just as good as playing ball to teammate. The problem is it happens so infrequently, I have seen less than 5 in 20+ years of coaching, that no one really practices it. I usually go over it once a season for like 5 minutes at the end of a set piece session.
posted by prof at 09:46 AM on June 25, 2019
I became a regular soccer viewer in 2006 when I channel flipped to Fox Soccer and got stuck there for days. England-Cameron is the first time I've seen an indirect free kick.