The game of football was invented a long, long time ago. Time-wasting in football was invented not long after that.
For as long as spectators have poured into the stands, football teams have been trying to gain a competitive advantage over their rivals. This is not always done in the most sporting of ways.
This article will go into different time-wasting techniques, how time-wasting has evolved throughout the years, and where this dark art can go next. A delay of a match may be infuriating to those on the losing side, but it will forever remain part of the beautiful game.
Tactic 1 – The Back-Pass
Imagine your team is trailing by a goal, and 30 minutes remain on the clock – plenty of time to claw one back at least or go on to win the game. There’s only one problem – the defenders of the opposing team are engaging in a game of hot potato.
Before 1992, any outfield player could pass the ball back to the goalie for them to pick it up.
If you were winning, this became a very useful way to kill precious seconds from the clock. If you were watching, the clock wasn’t the only thing you wanted to kill.
This yawn-inducing gamesmanship came to a head in the 1990 edition of the World Cup.
Italia ‘90 became infamous for the most drab displays put on television. The record of 2.2 goals per game in the tournament remains the lowest ever and the main reason for these low-scoring affairs was the back pass.
For many games, as soon as one went in that was it, game over.
This tactic was on full display in the Republic of Ireland vs Egypt, where the Irish goalkeeper was reported to have held the ball for six whole minutes out of the 90.
Not long after that dreadful showing, the International Football Association Board (IFAB) changed the rules of the game.
1992 was when goalkeepers could not pick a ball passed back to them from an outfield player – the rest is history. Goalkeepers were forced into developing footwork skills after the rule change.
30+ years on, a sweeper-keeper is a highly prized player coveted by teams that play fast, attacking football.
Tactic 2 – The Feigned Injury
This article is not denouncing those who fall on the blades of grass with a genuine injury. No one likes to see a player injured. Scorn and derision is instead placed on those who fake an injury for time-wasting purposes. And yet it works, for a few reasons:
- Few opposing players question the legitimacy of an injury in the first place.
- Referees can struggle to sense who is play-acting and who is not. Tongue-in-cheek awards are now meted out for football’s most extravagant dives.
- Injuries in general are taken more seriously nowadays.
Concussions were only taken seriously in the sport in 2014.
More players are encouraged not to ‘play through’ a suspected knock as medical understanding continues to improve. Footballers can get through over 70 games in a season.
This newfound sensitivity to the wear and tear of your average Bruno Fernandes, combined with the rigors of the modern game, means that injury management has further become an integral part of the overarching system of running a team – more now than ever.
The feigned injury will therefore never cease to be feigned. Football’s governing bodies have tried to combat this.
Injured players must now leave the pitch where they are closest to the touchline, instead of half-heartedly jogging across the pitch to the bench.
The 2022 World Cup saw more than nine hours of stoppage time added across the tourney – partly to combat stoppages for faked injuries. Yet, where there’s a will there’s a way.
A recent La Liga match saw 25 minutes of extra time, with few left feeling satisfied after its conclusion.
This inordinate amount of extra time can ramp up the unpredictability and tension of a match. With more opportunities for goals in injury time, the best betting sites in the U.K. are the perfect bookie to take advantage of all of this drama.
Goals that late will affect your bet when you stake on the ‘90 mins only’ or ‘Win’ market; anything can happen at the death!
How teams get to that point is another story. Below are more ways that clubs extend games.
Tactic 3 – The Art of Game Management
Teams can employ a wide array of game management techniques not yet listed.
All are within the laws of the game, most won’t get you a handshake after it. It seems as if any part of a match can be mutated to squeeze out precious seconds for the leaders.
Below are a few more:
Those between the sticks can take a few extra seconds during goal kicks to kill the clock.
In fact, a select few have been sent off for taking too long. Danny Amos of Maccabi Netanya received his marching orders in a 2021 match this exact way; he has since mended his ways.
Booting the ball into the corner and forming a human wall around it is a favored tactic of all teams.
A player in the Israeli league managed to keep the ball in this incredibly small area for over 2 minutes. A true master of his craft.
The MLS, Messi’s new home, will be trialing a new substitution rule to fend off time wasting when being subbed off. Players will have 10 seconds to exit the field or their team will play with 1 man less for a minute.
We will see if the world adopts that rule.
Where will the game go next?
Referees are increasingly being instructed to measure the exact amount of time being wasted.
Beforehand, they would add what they felt was fair. New technology can determine how much should be added on; on the flip side, lengthy VAR checks don’t make for great viewing.
Those in charge of how the game is played need to balance the whims of the players and fans to handle time-wasting. It is a fine balance where someone will always be left unhappy.
Wherever there is time, it is there to be wasted.
