Possession in soccer as well as many other sports is indicated by the overall amount of time a team spends with the ball in its own possession. As a result, a statistics keeper is often required to keep track of how long each team has possession of the ball during a game. Often, the team with the greater time of possession comes out victorious, due to the longer amount of time it gets to spend attacking the defense.
At the time of publication, Samantha Whitehead was a college soccer player at beginning of her career, but her accomplishments are inspiring due to her battle with type 1 diabetes. Whitehead is a strong left dominant Division 1...
Long jumpers are an unique type of track athlete who require equal amounts of strength and endurance. Unlike some athletes, long jumpers strive to keep their figures lean and light-weight to help boost the distances of their ju...
Before playing for the Spurs, De Villiers was a member of several other teams including the Jomo Cosmos and the Mpumalanga Black Aces. As a member of the Witbank Spurs, he competes in the Inland Stream of the National First Div...
If your soccer team favors a defensive approach rather than a more attacking stance, it is important to put your players in a more advantageous formation. There are two basic ways to focus on defense. You can move more players ...
While even 10-year-olds can begin to incorporate the one-two in recreational play, the technique becomes an art form in the hands of teams, such as Barcelona and Japan's national women's team, that hone their passing to perfect...
A soccer team with a poor defense will struggle in all competitions, no matter how well it plays on attack. If your team is leaking goals, it might be time to look at your formation. By changing the formation, you can give grea...
In soccer, a team tries to pass or dribble the ball toward the other team's goal. However, if the other team's defense is strong, that might not be possible. The player with the ball has two choices. The first is to power forwa...
The official duties of a soccer team captain might seem trivial. In professional soccer leagues, the official duties are limited to the coin toss to determine which ends the teams attack from and who takes the first shot in a s...
The modern era of soccer was born in 1863, when a group of male players met in a London tavern to break away from rugby. They formed a sport where, unlike in rugby, field players could only use their feet and could not kick eac...
The cross is part of the arsenal of most every soccer team from older youth leagues on up. At the top level, Los Angeles Galaxy midfielder David Beckham built a personal fortune on a right leg that could send the perfect cross ...
Officially, this is where your responsibilities end. According to FIFA's Laws of the Game, the captain of a team has no special status or privileges but he has a degree of responsibility for the behavior of his team. Beyond the...
The term double is unique to soccer and reflects the ability of one team to win in different competition formats in a single season and the importance of winning the league championship. The concept of a double does not exist i...
As athletes get older, not everybody makes the team. Coaches will have tryouts to assess which players are the best, and then form a team. By knowing what coaches are looking for at tryouts you can significantly improve your ch...
Yellow cards are a form of disciplinary action that a referee can award to any individual player or coach on a soccer team -- the yellow card is never given to a team as a whole. The yellow card serves as a warning to players o...
Pressing and covering are two tactics necessary for a successful defense in soccer. When an attacking team advances on your net, it's your team's responsibility to provide the goalie with coverage and support. By using two comm...
Soccer teams in Italy feature a fluid, patient build-up toward the goal that involves the entire team. Midfielders and forwards of great technical ability and flair play in front of dogged defenders, exemplified by Gennaro Gatt...
Younger girls simply need an introduction to soccer, practice in the basics and a good foundation for enjoying physical activity. You may play against other teams at the school or against other elementary schools, but your firs...
Possession soccer is a tactical strategy that a team employs to control the pace of a game. Through careful passing and slow advances, a team maintains possession of the ball. The chief benefit of this strategy is that it gives...
Defenders may not always garner as much glory as flashier players on the soccer team, but exemplary play does get noticed. Hall of Fame defender Eddie Pope played in three World Cups for the U.S., won election to the Major Leag...
Sharing soccer snacks is a common practice, either during halftime or after the game. On some youth soccer teams, parents take turns bringing snacks for all of the players. On other teams, you may only have to feed your own chi...
Soccer is a hot-button topic among sports fans, with proponents of the sport lauding its inherent creativity and teamwork, and detractors saying that scoring occurs too infrequently for the game to be exciting. There's one thin...
One of the leading soccer teams in Italy and Europe, in terms of both championships and fan following, is AC Milan, founded in 1899. Dozens of other teams, including leading ones in Spain and Argentina, also have "AC" as part o...
At the simplest level, all a soccer team needs is a flat space to play and a ball. But many types of equipment can help a soccer team achieve its potential. Before buying soccer equipment, consult the league manual to ensure th...
A soccer team can entail a group of small tots all chasing the ball with tiny steps, or it can be a juggernaut of elite players flowing like the wind down the field past stalwart defenders and a lightning-reflexed goalkeeper. A...
Captains act as mediators between their fellow players, coaches and referees. A good captain leads his team both on and off the field and is chosen based on leadership skills, not physical abilities.
The early history of soccer allowed players to pick the ball up with their hands, physical contact was encouraged, and different areas and teams played by different rules. It was the clarification of the rules in England in 186...
The Brazilian national soccer team is the most successful team in World Cup history. With five World Cup victories, the national team is a proven soccer powerhouse. The team will be looking to lift soccer's greatest prize for t...
Many threads weave together to create an adult soccer league team. Homegrown American talent mingles with international players for whom playing soccer is like breathing. Adult women looking to stay active but bored with joggin...
If you see two soccer teams running around on a weeknight or weekend, laughing if someone misses a shot and wearing T-shirts or jerseys that don't match perfectly, chances are you have happened upon a recreational game. The Uni...
Federal grants are available to help under-served communities make soccer available to all children who otherwise would not have access to youth soccer clubs and leagues. Through grants, such as Soccer Across America, kids can ...
In fact, it's the 10th-most popular sport in the U.S., according to sports business research group Taylor Nelson Sofres. If you're trying to familiarize yourself with the sport, the first thing you need to do is learn about the...
On a soccer pitch, the goalkeeper will be wearing a different colored jersey than the rest of the team. There are two primary reasons for this. The first is to help the referees differentiate the goalkeeper from the rest of the...
The process of getting on a men's college soccer team starts a decade or even more before you hit the age of 17 or so and begin to apply to colleges. "They've come up with a figure of 10,000 hours to become an accomplished play...
According to Nicaragua.com, baseball is the country's national sport and its most played. The country's national team's success, including a landmark event in 2009, has helped to raise soccer's profile in the country.
But because of legislation meant to level the amount of funding given to male and female college athletes, plenty of scholarships are available. Some 93 percent of Division I athletic programs had women's soccer teams as of 2010.
Soccer standout Mia Hamm played with boys from the age of 5 onward and led a boys' team of 11-year-olds in scoring --- when she herself was only 10. She credited much of her adult skill as a U.S. national women's team star to p...
When Nigeria's national soccer team competes in the qualifications and finals for the World Cup, it brings home some of Europe's top players, including those from England's Premier League. Nwankwo Kanu, best known for playing a...
Costa Rica may not have England's claim as the birthplace of modern soccer or Brazil's possession of five World Cup titles, but it does have another claim to fame. The tiny Central American nation has the highest percentage of ...
Although the the International Federation of Football Association considered decreasing the current age limit for men's Olympic soccer tournaments to 21, the regulating agency decided not to change the guidelines after pressure...
The Peru national soccer team, nicknamed "Incas" or "La Blanquirroja," meaning "the Red and White," competes for Peru in international tournaments as part of the South America Football Confederation, or CONMEBOL.
The United States is a relatively late arrival in the world of women's soccer. While European countries had women's teams playing in international competition before World War II, the U.S. did not have a women's soccer team unt...
Portsmouth Football Club (FC) is a professional soccer club located on the southern coast of England. Their home is Fratton Park stadium, which has stood since the club's founding. The team is known as the Pompeys or, occasiona...
Sweden was in on the ground floor in the history of soccer, as its national football association attended the 1904 founding of FIFA, the sport's international governing body. In 1958, Sweden hosted the World Cup, and in 1995, t...
The NCAA has conducted a men's college soccer championship since 1959, long before the NCAA divided its membership into three divisions. It took the NCAA much longer to begin conducting a women's championship. In 1972 Title IX ...
The Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club, commonly nicknamed the "Wolves," are one of the oldest football clubs still operating in the English Premier League. The team plays their matches in the West Midlands region of England...
Spurred by the lifting of the FA ban in 1971 and Title IX legislation passed in the United States in 1972, women became full participants in soccer. In 1991, 12 nations sent teams to compete in the first FIFA Women's World Cup ...
In practice, the three years of qualifying games held in each of FIFA's six geographic regions bring only 32 teams to the quadrennial event. Since its 1930 inauguration, a handful of powerhouses have typically qualified for the...
FIFA, the international governing body of soccer, counts around 1,500 professional players in the U.S. Stars such as Mia Hamm and Landon Donovan, who play on U.S.-based teams, have shown that, even though their sport is taken m...
The United States men's soccer teams have not experienced much success in Olympic competition, but the women's teams have. Only three American squads have won a gold medal in the Olympics over the course of more than a century,...
In the 1990s, interest in the FIFA World Cup led to return of professional soccer to the United States. Though the sport suffered initially from comparisons to the high standard of play in European football leagues, Major Leagu...
Soccer clubs in Colorado range from recreational youth academies to top-flight professional teams affiliated with Major League Soccer. Whether you are a youngster looking to develop your skills or an established player in need ...
In many countries outside the U.S., soccer is known as football. Soccer has a long history as a sport and its use in the Olympic Games dates back to more than a century ago. Different national teams have dominated Olympic socce...
As of 2006, the Rainbow Nation boasted of 4.5 million players in a population of 43 million, according to FIFA's "Big Count" survey, and its men's national team ranks 51st in the world as of 2011.
Soccer as we know it today, including its rules and regulations, originated in England in the 1830s. Despite its increasing popularity in the United States, few people know that the Native Americans and the pilgrims played a cr...
Training for the Olympic soccer team starts with youth camps and nationals, and each athlete must work his way up from the various teams of national leagues. The training that takes place at the nationals level carries on to th...
Children that are involved in soccer gain an increased amount of overall physical skills, coordination and fitness endurance. If your child has experience as a soccer player and shows an interest to participate in a traveling s...
Formal tryouts screen players for more competitive soccer, including youth travel teams, colleges and the pros. "There's always that one diamond out there," Washington Freedom coach Jim Gabarra told Gazette.net, "that everyone ...
Soccer is one of the most popular sports in the world, especially in the United Kingdom, where the organized sport had its beginnings in the 19th century. Today, British soccer teams such as England's Manchester United boast in...
However, youth indoor soccer teams do present a conundrum: while fostering recreation and physical activity, they also increase the risk of young athlete burnout and injury.
Major League Soccer started with 10 teams in 1996, the year the league also staged its first all-star game. The games were mostly East vs. West contests through 2004, but starting in 2005, a major format change took place with ...
The Arlington Soccer Association is home to the ARL Venom team. This boys team is comprised of players from across the state of Virginia. ARL Venom is a traveling soccer team that has participated in and won tournaments across ...
Since the 1945 introduction of the Nigerian Football Federation, the West African nation has become a top soccer contender on the international stage. Nigeria, under British control for centuries, has played in the World Cup an...
The term football means a game people play by using their feet to get around, as opposed to being on horseback. Having gained popularity during the Middle Ages as a competitive team sport, football has evolved into a worldwide...
Soccer is a popular team sport worldwide, though its name varies among regions. In the U.S., soccer leagues range from youth to professional to national. Worldwide, there are many leagues, some of which focus on international c...
In fact, each player on the team is playing a very specific role to contribute to the team. Each position on a soccer team has an important task, and they all work together by doing their own parts to help the whole team win.
While the United States has professional soccer teams, the sport does not enjoy the wide-spread popularity of professional leagues in Europe or other American professional sports such as basketball, baseball, football or hockey...
Team chemistry is often cited as a key to success in soccer and other team sports, and soccer team-building exercises are a crucial element of bonding for the team. As a coach, you should use soccer team-building exercises in t...
Soccer is an extremely popular sport, where two teams of 11 players compete for the most goals. Each team runs the length of the field and shoots at the opposing team's goal. The goal, then, is the most important structure of t...
Team chemistry is as crucial in soccer as every other team sport. A group of talented players will win games, but a group must mold together and become a team if it is to win a championship and truly reach its potential. Use so...
A soccer left wing can be a midfielder, a forward or both depending on the team's formation. Generally, the term "left wing" refers to any offensive player who plays on the left side of the field. Because the term is so genera...
Any high-impact activity that requires running or sharp changes of direction exposes your patellar tendon to strain and overuse, two common causes of jumper's knee. These activities include team sports such as soccer and footba...