Soccer Goalkeeping
Association football, also known as just football or soccer, is an intercollegiate team sport traditionally played between two teams of eleven players each. It is the world’s second most popular sport, behind only tennis. The game has gained popularity in many countries around the globe, including the United States. It has even spread to other countries like South Africa, Australia and Canada. The game is generally played on a specially designed field with regulation football pitches. The surfaces are usually made from hard material like rubber and plastic.
The rules of this game are governed by a governing body called FIFA (Federation of International Football Associations), which decides the qualifications and format of national teams for the World Cup tournaments every four years. At these tournaments, teams from all over the world battle it out in a qualifying round, with the winner qualifying for the tournament. Each of the four countries that are qualified for the tournament play each other once, with the winners going to the next round. The last four games of the qualifying round are played in the final round, and the winner is the one who gets the most votes.
The very basic rule of association football is that each team must try to score at least three goals in a match. If a team scores more goals than their opponents, they win the match. There are two exceptions to this rule however. If a team scores three goals against their opposition and still wins the match, the winning team receives three points, instead of the usual two. And if a team loses by less than a goal in a match, they do not receive any points.
The position that a goalkeeper plays is quite unique in football matches. When a goal is scored, the goalkeeper will start to play the ball. If the goalkeeper manages to stop the ball from entering the net, he will then ‘keeper the ball and put it into his own goal. This saves the opposing team from scoring a goal, and makes the game much more exciting for fans.
The role of the goalkeeper is quite vital in the world of football. The goalkeeper is usually the first point of contact for both teams when a tackle occurs. If a goalkeeper is able to control the ball and prevent the opposition from gaining possession of it, he can literally make the game very difficult for the opposition. If the opposing team manages to take control of the ball before the goalkeeper is able to recover, then an even more difficult task awaits him. As a result, if a foreign national team or a club team is looking to qualify for the next international football match, then they would do well to have a goalkeeper with exceptional skills.
If a foreign national team or club team qualifies through the tournament by having the most goals scored, then they will be playing in the next World Cup. Usually there are five countries that automatically qualify for the tournament; Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia and Netherlands. However, if an extra place is left available, then the teams that qualify will need to fight for it among the other countries that qualified through their own Qualifying Tournaments. Each country has eleven players on their squad that must play during the entire season; therefore, a goalkeeper can only participate in a qualifying tournament once. Therefore, if a foreign national team or a club team wants to qualify for the World Cup, then they should make sure that they have the best goalkeeper in the country or the league with the most experience.