with his instep or by using the sides of his feet. A player can pass the ball to a teammate by striking it with his head or by kicking it. Kick passes are most often made with the inside of the foot and almost never with the toe. Near the enemy goal, players score in a number of ways. Some have perfected kicks past the defender and fool the goalkeeper. Others take a high pass from a teammate and use their head to blast the ball past the goalkeeper. Scoring a goal is more difficult than it looks. The field is slightly longer than a football field and half the width. A team must move the ball a long way without losing possession of the ball. It may require up to twenty passes and fancy dribbling. On most soccer drives, even in programs, the offense is broken up before it gets shot on goal. A referee on the field who is assisted by two linesmen, one on each sideline, controls the game. Intentional contact with the ball from the shoulders to the hands is forbidden. The referee will stop play and award a direct free kick from the point of infraction, against the offending team when a penalty is called. It is possible to score a goal directly with that kind of kick. If one of the offenses is committed by a player inside that team's own penalty area, then the other team gets a penalty kick. The ball is placed on the penalty mark, twelve yards from the goal line, and only the goalkeeper is allowed to defend. The most important skills to practice are the offensive ones: dribbling (moving the ball down field), receiving, trapping, and kicking. Then there are the defensive skills: marking (the soccer term for guarding) an opponent, and slide tackling (slide tackling is a move to get the ball off an opponent by sliding on the ground like sliding into a base) and heading. A soccer player must do more with his head than strike at the ball. Individual skills are useful only when they fit in with the team. Soccer teams use strategies, and a good pla...
