What American fans get wrong about soccer, and what they need to know for the World Cup

One of the reasons many Americans who didn’t grow up playing, watching, or learning soccer have such a hard time understanding the sport is, I think, that they spend too much time comparing it to American sports — especially football.

The problem is those comparisons are often black and white, while soccer is anything but. It’s a game filled with nuance, ambiguity, and gray areas that can fuel decades of debate, speculation, and sometimes outright hostility among fans.

Example: The ‘Hand of God’ and soccer’s endless arguments

No play illustrates this better than Diego Maradona’s infamous “Hand of God” goal.

On June 22, 1986, at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, Maradona scored the opening goal in Argentina’s 2-1 World Cup victory over England by using his left hand to punch the ball past goalkeeper Peter Shilton. Officials missed the infraction, and the goal stood.

What often gets forgotten is what happened four minutes later. Maradona took the ball near midfield, dribbled through much of the English defense, and scored what many still consider the greatest goal in World Cup history — later dubbed the “Goal of the Century.”

Years later, Maradona admitted he used his hand on the first goal. Yet nearly four decades later, English fans still debate it, argue about it, and often remain furious over it.

The controversy goes beyond soccer. The match came just four years after the Falklands War between Argentina and the United Kingdom. Maradona later described the goal as a form of symbolic revenge for Argentina.

In Argentina, however, the goal is often celebrated as an example of “viveza criolla,” a cultural concept that values cleverness and finding a way to gain an advantage.

Same play. Two completely different interpretations.

That’s soccer.

Extra time vs. added time

Another source of confusion for American fans is the terminology.

Many people hear “extra time” and assume it means the same thing as the added minutes shown at the end of each half. It doesn’t.

Added time is the time a referee adds at the end of a half to account for injuries, substitutions, time-wasting, VAR reviews, and other stoppages.

Extra time is an entirely separate 30-minute period used in knockout competitions when a game is tied after regulation. It consists of two 15-minute halves.

If the score remains tied after extra time, the match usually goes to a penalty shootout.

Simple enough until you realize soccer uses two different forms of extra minutes that mean completely different things.

Why added time is soccer’s most debated rule

Added time may be soccer’s biggest source of drama.

Unlike football or basketball, the game clock doesn’t stop for injuries, substitutions, goal celebrations, or video reviews. Instead, the referee adds time at the end of each half to make up for those delays.

But the number shown on the board is a minimum, not an exact countdown.

That’s why fans of the winning team are often screaming for the referee to blow the whistle, while the losing team desperately wants a few more seconds to score. Referees also generally won’t end a match in the middle of a promising attack, adding even more tension.

The art of wasting time

Late in games, teams protecting a lead often try to burn precious seconds by slowly leaving the field during substitutions, delaying throw-ins and goal kicks, or holding onto the ball after a whistle.

Those tactics frustrate opponents and fans alike, but they’re part of soccer’s gamesmanship. Ironically, obvious time-wasting often leads referees to add even more time.

Like so many soccer rules, added time leaves room for interpretation and endless arguments long after the final whistle.

Why teams don’t substitute like American football

Substitutions are another concept that surprises American sports fans.

Unlike football, basketball, or hockey, soccer coaches can’t constantly rotate players in and out.

Under current international rules:

• Teams can make up to five substitutions.
• Those substitutions must occur during no more than three stoppages in regulation time.
• Multiple players can enter during the same stoppage, and it only counts as one substitution opportunity.
• Halftime substitutions don’t count against those opportunities.
• Most competitions allow remaining substitutions during extra time.
• Concussion substitutions are handled separately.
• Once a player leaves the match, they cannot return.

This creates a level of strategy unfamiliar to fans of American sports. Coaches must carefully decide not only who to substitute, but when.

When is the ball actually out of bounds?

Then there’s one of the most confusing concepts for new viewers.

In football or basketball, the ball is generally out as soon as it touches a boundary line or a player steps on one.

Not in soccer.

The ball is only out of play when the entire ball completely crosses the entire line, whether that’s the touchline on the side of the field or the goal line.

If even a tiny portion of the ball is still hovering over or touching the line, play continues.

That’s why you’ll sometimes see players sprinting after a ball that appears to be out of bounds, only to save it at the last moment.

It’s also why players can stand outside the field of play and still legally touch the ball, provided the ball itself has not fully crossed the line.

To many American fans, it looks wrong.

To soccer fans, it’s perfectly normal.

Soccer lives in the gray area

All of these examples point to the same thing.

Soccer isn’t a sport built on constant stoppages, rigid measurements, or endless replay reviews determining every inch of a play. Much of the game lives in interpretation.

That’s part of what frustrates newcomers.

It’s also part of what makes the sport beloved around the world.

The arguments never end. The debates never die. Entire generations of fans can watch the same play and come away with completely different conclusions.

Which brings me to why I decided to poke the bear.

I dragged our own Chris Sullivan in front of a camera to talk about some of these rules, quiz him on what he knows, what he doesn’t know, and perhaps most importantly, why he seems to hate soccer so much in the first place. You can watch the full discussion in the video above.

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