Soccer Rules
Soccer is played between teams of even numbers (at the professional level, eleven), and the object for each team is to control a ball and place it into the opposing team's net. The team that scores the most of these goals, wins. Note that matches may also end in a draw. Players may control the ball with any part of their body except their hands and arms, with the exception of one player on each team designated the goalkeeper, who may handle the ball within a certain "penalty" area in front of the net that he is guarding.
Like in basketball, contact between opposing players with the intent of causing harm to a player or disrupting his team's strategy is not allowed. A referee observes the game and stops play for any such fouls, and in the event of a foul, orders a free kick of the ball from the spot where the foul is suffered by the team whose player suffers the foul. A foul committed by player in his own penalty area results in a penalty kick from a designated spot in front of the goalkeeper and the goal.
Fouls may also be given for unsportsmanlike conduct. At the referee's discretion, he may also "book" a player for a malicious foul by awarding a yellow card, or a red card for more egregious offenses. Two yellow cards or one red card results in the player's expulsion from the game, in which case the ejected player cannot be replaced.
Free kicks may also be awarded in the event that a player or players are found to be offsides, in which offenders place themselves ahead of the ball as well as the last opposing field player. The disallowing of offsides is to prevent players from camping out in front of an opponent's net.
Other stoppages include throw-ins, where a ball that has traveled beyond the boundary of the playing field is thrown back into play by the team whose opponent last touched the ball, goal kicks, where a ball that has traveled beyond the end line of the field is returned to play by the goalkeeper if the attacking team is the last to touch it, and corner kicks, where a ball that has traveled beyond the end line is kicked back into play from the nearest corner flag by a field player whose opponent last touched it.
Matches are ninety minutes long, divided into two halves (the ends of which time is added at the referee's discretion to offset stoppages taking place during the course of regular play), with two fifteen minute extra time periods and a penalty kick "shootout" as necessary during matches where tied scores must be broken.
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