One of the posts of Huffington says that around 265 million people throughout the world love the soccer game and play it, and nearly, half the crowd enjoy playing soccer with high interest. So what makes soccer very special and interesting to people and how long is a soccer game? Let us look in this blog in detail. When you develop an interest towards a game, it is important that you know about the game completely. Especially, a game like soccer may improve your interest and let you know more about it.
Why football or soccer is so popular?
Soccer does not expect you to have multiple and heavy equipment to carry/wear and play the game. It is a high-energetic game that allows participants to focus on the goal, improving their interest towards the game and win it. To play the soccer game, you need only a ball, cleats, shin guard, and any goal markers.
Two teams of 11 players in each, play this game very sensibly and with braveness. One in the eleven member-team will be a goalkeeper and his objective will be to stop the opponent’s ball from coming into the goal court. The entire game involves three sets of actions such as dribbling, passing, and eventually, shooting the ball. The enjoyment and thrill the player’s experience in this game, make it so popular among youngsters.
The Players
There will be 11 players on each side along with some substitutes as well. These 11 players are divided into four categories on each side.
Goalkeepers
The primary and main job of goalkeepers is to try and stop the other team from kicking the ball into the goal and avoid scoring. Only the goalkeeper is allowed to touch the ball with both hands.
Defenders
Defenders try and stop the other team from scoring by protecting their ball.
Midfielders
They are the players in between the strikers and defenders, and they pass the ball to the strikers so they can score high. Midfielders support both the teams-in one way by defending their goals and strikers by scoring for them.
Strikers
Strikers are also called as forwards or attackers where they try to score goals by kicking the soccer ball into the other team’s goal.
How long does a soccer game may take?
Here comes the answer for your question how long is a soccer game. A typical professional soccer game will contain two periods with each period lasting for 45 minutes long with a half-time of 15 minutes. But the time of each soccer league may vary from period to period. If it is a youth league, the game timing will have shorter periods, and high school matches will have two 40-minute periods or four 20-minute periods. Similarly, youth soccer games will have two 20-minute periods or four 10-minute periods.
Additional Time
In case an extra time is taken for substitutions, injuries or the opponent team wastes time, the referee can allow for lost time. This rule was included because sometimes, players would start to stall, take long time making decisions for substitutions, or fake injuries, and based on it, the referee adds time to the end of the period.
In case there is a penalty kick, even then the referee allows extended time period.
A Tie Game
If there is a score tie at the end of the second period, things may change any time depending on the game flow. In some leagues, the game may go for a draw, and it ends at that moment. In some other leagues, it may go straight to penalty kicks. When it comes to FIFA World Cup Soccer, along with an overtime period, players get some extra time for penalty kicks as well.
An overtime will be given a period of 15 minutes for each time period. When talking about penalty kicks, the winner of the tie game is determined by these penalty kicks, with 5 shots on goal and each team taking an alternative turn. The team with most points after 5 shots will win the game.
Conclusion
Now you know how long is a soccer game and how popular it is among the football or soccer game lovers, many of you might now be interested to know more about the game. Don’t worry; we don’t disappoint you. You can keep watching this pace for more information about soccer and several other interesting games as well.
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