By Regina Volpe and Abby Strusowski - SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
Soccer (or football if you live anywhere but the United States) is a game compiled of two 45-minute periods. Ten field players and a goalkeeper take the field per team. The object of the game is to score the most goals within the 90 minutes. If the game remains scoreless or tied, the game goes into overtime. In overtime, seven players from each side typically play a sudden-death situation, where the first team to score is the winner. Should the game still be scoreless or tied after the overtime period is over, it ends in a tie.
First off, to understand the sport you need to know why all those kids are running around on the field, and what the heck is happening. The following are the various positions:
Goalkeepers are confined to the half of the field they’re defending, they also get to wear fancy gloves that have traction when blocking goals.
The following positions can move freely across the field: Midfielders, defenders and forwards.
Now these are the things you’ll hear at various points of the game:
Assist: The player who passes the ball to the player who scores the goal tallies an assist.
Box: aka the penalty box, is the larger box that is around the goal.
Corner Kick: When the offensive team kicks the ball from the corner in an attempt to score a goal. It usually causes a cluster by the goal.
Flags: Linesmen (the dudes on the side of the field that aren’t refs running around) have flags that they use to signal their opinion of the play to the referee.
Goal: Ball goes in the net. Crowd cheers. Scoring team celebrates.
Hand ball: Not just when any player, besides the goalie, grabs the ball; in this case “hand” actually means “any part of your arm from the elbow down” (quite different). Also lands the offending player a yellow card (see below).
Header/head: When a player hits the ball with their head; looks quite painful.
Penalty kick: Awarded when any defensive player commits a foul inside the penalty box. The offensive team sends one shooter to the penalty mark and they get a free shot with the only obstacle being the goalie.
Punt: When the goalkeeper launches the ball across the field, the crowd usually is awed by it sailing across the sky.
Red card: Big no-no, in fact, the biggest no-no. The red card signals a misconduct that removes the player from the rest of the game and their position cannot be replaced by another player. They also cannot play in their next match.
Shot on Goal: When the player takes a shot that is either saved by the goalkeeper, or goes in for a goal.
Yellow card: A misconduct lower than the red card, basically a warning to the player to cut whatever they were doing out. Two yellow cards is the equivalent of one red card.
Now that you know the basics of soccer, go forth and cheer for Hofstra soccer because you know what just happened, not just because everyone else in the stadium is.