Soccer rules for beginners

Futbol looks chaotic until you know what you are watching. The good news: the core rules fit on one page. Here they are.

The goal of the game

Two teams of 11 players each try to put the ball into the other team's goal. Whoever scores more goals wins. You can use any part of your body except your hands and arms. The only player allowed to use hands is the goalkeeper, and only inside their own penalty area.

A match is 90 minutes, split into two halves of 45. The referee adds a few minutes of "stoppage time" at the end of each half to make up for time lost to injuries and substitutions.

Kicking off and restarts

Play starts with a kickoff from the center. When the ball fully crosses a line, it comes back in a specific way:

• Over the sideline: a throw-in (the only time an outfield player uses their hands).
• Over the goal line, last touched by the attacker: a goal kick for the defending team.
• Over the goal line, last touched by the defender: a corner kick for the attacking team.

Fouls, free kicks and penalties

If you kick, trip, push or handle the ball illegally, the referee calls a foul and gives the other team a free kick from that spot. If the foul happens inside the penalty area, it is a penalty kick: one shot from 12 yards out, just the kicker against the goalkeeper. Penalties are converted most of the time, so they are huge.

Yellow and red cards

The referee manages behavior with cards:

• A yellow card is a warning for a serious foul or unsporting behavior.
• A red card sends a player off for the rest of the match, and the team must play the rest a player short. Two yellows in one game add up to a red.

Playing with 10 against 11 is a real disadvantage, which is why discipline matters.

Offside

The one rule that deserves its own explanation is offside, which stops attackers from simply waiting by the goal. We cover it fully in What is offside?.

The officials

One referee runs the game on the field, helped by two assistants on the sidelines (who flag for offside and out-of-bounds) and, at the World Cup, VAR: video officials who review goals, penalties and red cards for clear mistakes. The complete rulebook, the Laws of the Game, is maintained by IFAB.

That is enough to follow any match with confidence. Everything else is detail, and you will pick it up fast once you are watching. Stuck on a term? Check the Futbol glossary or ask Capi below.