Physical Contact in Soccer?  (continued)

If a player has the ball within playing distance and keeps her body between the ball and the defender this is considered a form of shielding.  It’s most effective when the player shielding the ball initiates the contact by leaning into the defender. By doing this, she always knows where the defender is (if there is no contact, it’s easy to lose the defender which makes it harder to shield). Also, the person initiating the contact is usually better prepared to deal with the contact. This means that if the player shielding the ball doesn’t make contact with the defender and then all of a sudden the defender bumps the player shielding the ball (without committing a foul) the player shielding the ball will frequently get knocked off balance and lose the ball. However, if the player shielding the ball is the one who initiates contact it’s the defender who gets knocked off balance a bit. See Drill 48 below for ways to work on shielding

If two players are running side by side within playing distance of a ball and make contact shoulder to shoulder this would be considered a legal shoulder charge (there are other considerations for legal shoulder charges such as the arms in close to the body etc). Even if this contact seems to give one player an "unfair advantage" over the other player it’s allowed as long as it’s done within the laws of the game.  Sometimes you see two players running for a ball and after a legal shoulder charge one player gets knocked to the ground. When this happens you frequently hear the yells from the sideline that it’s a "foul!" However, just because one player is bigger or stronger doesn’t make it a foul.

In the same way that there is contact in soccer with shielding and shoulder charges there are other times there is contact such as balls in the air, marking a target player etc. The players who understand that there is contact in soccer are better prepared to deal with it (please understand I am NOT advocating dirty play or unnecessarily physical play just dealing with the reality of the game). The fans that understand this are also better prepared to understand the game.

Physical contact is part of the game and those who train for it are the ones who will be better prepared to excel at the game.