Football has seventeen official Laws of the Game, but you only need a handful to follow a match. Here are the ones that come up in every game.
How you score
A goal is scored when the whole ball crosses the whole goal line, between the posts and under the crossbar. Not most of the ball — all of it. Almost every goal is worth exactly one, whether it is a tap-in or a screamer from thirty metres out.
Offside, without the headache
Offside is the rule people find trickiest, but the idea is simple: you can't camp behind the last defenders and wait for the ball. You are offside if, at the moment a team-mate plays the ball, you are nearer the opponents' goal line than both the ball and the second-last defender — and it only applies in the opponents' half.
What matters is where you are when the ball is played, not when you receive it. And you can never be offside straight from these:
- A throw-in
- A corner kick
- A goal kick
Fouls, free kicks and penalties
Kicking, tripping, pushing or holding an opponent — or handling the ball on purpose — is a foul, and the other team gets a free kick. But there's a big exception to where it happens.
If a defending team commits that kind of foul inside its own penalty area, it's a penalty: a free shot from the penalty spot, eleven metres out, with only the goalkeeper to beat. That's why the box is such a dangerous place to give a foul away.
Yellow cards and red cards
A yellow card is a warning for a bad foul or bad behaviour. A red card means you're sent off and must leave the pitch — and your team plays on with ten players. Two yellows in the same match add up to a red.
The restarts
When the ball goes out, how it comes back depends on where it left and who touched it last:
- Out over a touchline — a throw-in for the team that didn't touch it last.
- Over the goal line off a defender — a corner kick to the attackers.
- Over the goal line off an attacker — a goal kick to the defenders.