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John Califf
UWRT 1101
Ms. Jamie Burgess
December 1, 2014
What is Soccer?
There are many different types of communities in todays world. No one person has
experienced every community possible nor have they gotten close. Hopefully this will give you
some insight into a community that you have yet to experience in your life. That community is
soccer. I have played different sports for fun and been on competitive teams before and this is
not like many others that I have participated in. Not only is the way that the game is played
different but the language is different alone. Most people know the concept of soccer but not the
language that we use. Not only did I interview people who participated in this community but I
also participated myself on different teams ever since I was four years old and have seen the
language change myself. I always thought that I was seeing the game as clear as possible but
when I started to watch other people play I realized that I was wrong. Doing so made me view
the game with different eyes and I picked up on things that I had not seen while playing the
game. This happened because I was not concerned about playing the game but more concerned
as to how you play the game.
People will say that they understand soccer but in reality they do not understand it in the
way that other players and myself do. When someone says square most people think of a little
square with four even sides but I think of something completely different. To me square means
that someone wants the ball passed to them and they are directly to your left or right. This can

take time to get used to because there are so many different terms for how you want a pass. You
can call for a pass by saying different words like square, drop, through, cross, switch fields, weak
side, overlap, corner, header, or even eighteen. These all indicate where you are when they pass
the ball or where you want them to place the ball when they pass it. If you call out drop that
means that you are behind the person with the ball and you want them to flick the ball back to
you. This is similar to overlap because when you say overlap you run past them and then they
kick the ball up in front of you where you are running to. A cross is a long ball that you want in
front of you while you are a good distance beside them. This is similar to switch the field
because when you call switch the field that means that you are on the complete opposite side of
the field as them, this is another way to say weak side too. Corner means exactly what you think,
place the ball at the corner flag. When you hear someone yell eighteen that means that they want
you to give them the ball right on the eighteen yard marker or the top of the goalie box. Lastly a
header is when you want them to give the ball in the air so that you can head the ball. Getting
this terminology down is very important because I have seen many times where it went from
good to bad just because someone got a word wrong. Sometimes even if someone were to call
out the wrong pass the player passing the ball can read their mind and give them the pass that
they meant to call out. It may seem impossible but after playing the game for a few years these
terms tend to come natural. But not every term comes natural because I know that some people
along with myself tend to get through and square mixed up. This typically happens to me if I get
heated during a game. During my interview I was talking about how in math class when the
teacher says the word square I tend to automatically think about it in soccer terms rather than
as an actual square. Michael also said that the same thing tends to happen to him.

There is also different terminology for different parts of soccer like how to guard
someone for instance. Some people will call out the number of the opposing teams players to
indicate that they are guarding them or that they are wide open and you need someone to step up
on them. When you and your teammate are guarding one player they call out either ball or
cover. The person who calls ball steps up to man with the ball and covers them. The player who
calls cover stands staggered to the man who called ball and will try and intercept the pass if they
were to try and pass the ball. This is very helpful to know because during my observations one
team was calling out ball and cover and was successful while the other team did not call those
terms out and the players looked lost.
The refs, who are usually dressed in a yellow and black stripped shirt with black shorts or
pants, even use their own terminology like red card, yellow card, offside, and blowing their
whistle is even a way that they communicate. The refs will sometimes start out with a warning
which means that they will keep close watch over you. A very common term foul is used in
many sports but it can have a different meaning in every sport. For example a foul in basketball
is most likely different than that in soccer. You can get a foul for slide tackling someone in
soccer while that does not happen in a basketball game. If you were to commit another foul they
can give you a yellow card which in high school soccer means that you have to be subbed out but
you can come back in. A red card is given after a yellow card and then you are out for the rest of
that game and cannot play the next game. For committing a foul the other team can be awarded
a free kick or a penalty kick which means that you get a one on one shot against the goalie.
When a player is called for being offside that means that they were past the last opposing player
and the ball was passed to them resulting in the other team getting the ball.

The coaches also have a language that they use to communicate. One of my coaches
would use the words red light or green light. This was used to decide how the team would play.
If he yelled out red light that would mean no scoring for a while and he would want us to try and
just possess the ball. When that period of time was over he would say green light which meant
that he would want us to attack when we have the ball and try and score on the opposing team. If
he were to yell out gap, only when we were playing defense, that means that there is a hole in the
middle of the field and one of the opponents was in the hole and had too much room and no one
covering him. Then someone would pick him up and the team would shift according to whom
left their position to cover them.
The way that soccer players look is also different. For football the players are all padded
up from head to toe and in baseball there is no padding. Soccer has minimal padding with only
shin guards covered by tall socks that look like the rest of your teammates socks. Wearing
identical jerseys to your teammates helps you tell the difference from one team to the other.
Some players wear short sleeve jerseys but others myself included prefer long sleeve jerseys.
The captain usually is noticeable due to the yellow band on his arm with a bold black C on the
side. The captain is supposed to treat his team the way that he would want to be treated but at
the same time he has to be loud and harsh at times. The reason that he needs to be loud or harsh
is because his responsibility is to carry the team on his back. Being loud at the right times can do
a few different things. One thing that being loud can get across is for the teammate to do his job
the right way if he is not doing it to the best of his ability. Another way that being loud can be
helpful is to get the team as a whole into a game mode. This can pump them up when the team
already has momentum going with them which can be deadly of the other team is not expecting
this. I have seen this many times for instance when a team I was watching was tied with little

time left in the game the captain took it upon himself to get loud and pump the rest of the team
up resulting in a goal being scored and them winning the game.
Teams tend to act and carry themselves the same way during practice and games. While
practice is to be taken seriously and is a game like manor there is more room for goofing off. At
both times for the team to complete their tasks to the best way possible they must function
together as a whole on the same channel. If one player is not feeling it that day it tends to have
an effect on the team as a whole. It is important to treat practice as an actual game because then
you will always be in game mode and know how to carry that momentum from practice over to
the next game. Every team has the potential to become a discourse community of its own
because different teams connect together differently. An example of this would be how the
professional team Real Madrid connects compared to our high school team at Burlington
Christian Academy. It will more likely be easier for Real Madrid to connect as a team because
that team is filled of talented players with more experience.
When you sit and watch soccer you see everything differently than when you are playing.
Soccer players can see every little detail that is missed while you are on the field playing from
every little gap to every player that is not marked. This is so because while you are playing the
game, yes you are supposed to be watching for every detail but you get caught up in the moment.
When you get caught up in the moment you tend to mess up and you can forget a player to mark
which can hurt the whole team. The whole team can be hurt by this because if you dont have a
man to mark then a teammate has to pick them up which means that there will always be a man
open. The best way to avoid this is to use the key words that I have mentioned earlier in the
paper to communicate with your team. I have heard this from my coach many times and have
also experienced it myself with watching not only my old high school team play but also with

watching the mens team at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte play. While
interviewing my friend he also concluded that you miss things that happen on the field compared
to watching the game.
A community of soccer players is more than likely going to communicate on a different
level than that of a bass fishing team. But in the end every different community will
communicate on different levels. If a basketball player were to randomly join a soccer team they
would not be used to their terminology and would probably be lost. This just shows that it is
good to experience different communities so that way you might be more likely to jump into a
new one easier.

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