Soccer 101

We hope you’ve been enjoying our sports 101 series so far! Today, we’re going to cover some soccer basics, or futbol if you are from outside North America, so you can enjoy this game played by many a hot man.

In soccer, there are 2 teams of 11 players each, including the goalie. The remaining 10 players are divided into defense, mid-field, and forward positions. Typically, they are in a 3-4-3 formation. In professional soccer, they play two 45-minute halves in attempts to score a goal in the opponent’s net. Players can use any part to further the ball, except their arms and hands. They can only use their hands when protecting themselves or when throwing in a ball from the side lines.

Some common fouls are offsides, blatant shoving/tripping or anything physically unnecessary. Time does not stop for fouls, but time is added at the end of each half which is called stoppage time and it is rounded up to the nearest minute.

Any foul that occurs in the penalty box results in the team that did not commit the foul getting a penalty kick. A penalty kick is when the player that got fouled gets a chance to make a goal from within the penalty box, just them against the goalie. A free kick occurs when a foul has been committed outside of the penalty box, and is when the team the foul was committed on gets a free kick from wherever the foul happened. Also, players can get red cards from either committing a serious foul or from getting 2 yellow cards. If a player gets a red card, they are thrown out of the game and their team plays a man down.

I hope that this has helped you understand the game of soccer better! I want to end with sharing the official video from the FIFA World Cup 2010 – I love this song and video!

Do you have a favorite team or player?

Cape Town, South Africa!

This made our summer vacation trip destinations list for a few reasons, mainly because it was easily my favorite trip to date!

Not only does South Africa offer both mountains and beaches, it also has opposite seasons from those in the Western world, and their winter is actually during our summer. So you can imagine how grateful I was for the brief relief from the Florida heat!

The main purpose of my trip to Cape Town, was to enjoy the World Cup, which took place in South Africa in 2010. So of course my activities included attending soccer games! Besides that, my itinerary consisted of a jeep safari where I got to see all sorts of animals hang out in their natural habitat, chilled with some wild penguins at Boulder Beach, taste tested at some amazing wineries, visited the southern most tip of Africa, and took in all the amazing sites the city had to offer.

Sadly, the only thing I missed out on while in Cape Town was taking a trip to Robben Island to visit the jail cell where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. Since the city was overrun with World Cup fans like me trying to see everything – trips were booked weeks out.

I’m not worried though, I know I’ll be back and visiting Robben Island will be first on my priority list. Not only did Cape Town have amazing locales to visit, it had delicious fresh food, and incredibly friendly residents. What more could you ask for?

Is South Africa on your must visit list?