Question:
1) if there is a hand ball is it a direct or indirect free kick? how do you know when to call a indirect or direct kick? 2) if the goalie comes out of his area, and advances the ball to the opposite goal, and loses the ball, the defending team has the ball, how would you call that play as a linesman, would the last defender be consider a goalie? would the the forward be offside if he is in front of the last defender but the goalie is way on the other side of the field. this happened to me 2 weeks ago, i counted the goal but should i have?
USSF answer (August 26, 2008):
1) Let’s get some terminology straight here. A “hand ball” means nothing in soccer. If you mean that a player deliberately handled the ball, that is a direct free kick foul. If the handling was not deliberate, then there was no foul, no matter that the player whose hand the ball hit may have “gained an advantage.”
2) Only the goalkeeper can be considered the goalkeeper. Neither of the last two opponents between an attacking player and the opponents’ goal must be the goalkeeper. No, you should not have counted the goal if there was only one opponent between the player and the goal line and the ball was played to that player. That player would have been in an offside position and thus offside (interfering with play) when his teammate played the ball to him.
