I came back from holiday two days ago and picked up this thread. There were one or two postings about Association Football (the game administered by FIFA), and thereafter everything relates to "American football", a game over which FIFA has no jurisdiction.
_____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Carleton MacDonald Sent: 11 October 2009 02:30 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:45997] Re: FIFA Football Fields Changing that would be more of a disruption than changing 100 yards to 100 meters. For those outside the USA, the basic idea of US football is to get the ball across the other team's goal line. Get it across by a pass (to someone in the end zone beyond the goal line) or a rush (running with the ball over the goal line is 6 points; this is called a touchdown. You get to try to kick the ball through the goal posts after doing that; if you succeed, that's 1 more point. (You can also try to pass or rush it through; this is less certain, but if you do, that's 2 points.) The other primary way to score is a field goal. This is when you can't get close enough to the goal line to get the ball over, so you try to kick it through. If you succeed, that's 3 points. There are a couple other ways to score but they are weird. To move the ball, you get four plays to move it 10 yards toward the opponent's goal line. If you succeed (it can take fewer than four plays) you get a "first down" and you have four more plays to get another 10 yards. You can advance the ball by passing it to another player or by giving it to a player who runs with it. Meanwhile, the 11 guys on the other team are trying to keep you from doing that, usually by tackling you or running into you (which is why all the body armor). The ball is put into motion by someone on the offensive line, the center, shoving it through his legs to the quarterback, who is behind him. The quarterback then tries to find someone to hand it to (rush) or throw it to (pass), or, in a few cases when he can't find anyone and he is in the clear, by running with it himself. He has to do this before the defensive players shove their way through the offensive line (some of whom do not ever get the ball; their job is to keep the defensive players away from the quarterback) and get to him. They try not to let the defense do that because if the quarterback gets tackled (he is eligible for that if he has the ball) and injured a very valuable player is now out of the game. If the quarterback is tackled before he can pass or hand off the ball this is called a 'sack' and the defensive player who did that then usually does a full-of-himself dance maneuver, with his fingers in the air to indicate that he is Number One. Defensive players who can sack the quarterback are very valuable as they can cause a play to stop and usually cause a loss of distance for the offensive team (because the quarterback is farther back than where the ball started while he's looking for someone to pass it to or hand it to). This means on the next down the offensive team has farther to go to get first down, a disadvantage. When passing, a couple people on the offensive line called wide receivers run downfield and try to get open so the quarterback can throw the ball to them. If this succeeds a lot of distance can be gotten; once the wide receiver is stopped the ball starts play again at that location, but sometimes he is open and runs through to the goal line, a touchdown, and 6 points. When rushing, the rusher basically bulldozes through the defensive line of the other team. Good rushers can make a path for themselves. Good players on the defensive line can make sure that path does not get created. The offensive does not normally take four plays to try to advance the ball. If they have three and haven't gone 10 years, they normally use the fourth play to kick the ball away. Otherwise, if the fourth play fails, the defensive team gets the ball in a very favorable position. When the ball changes possession the team that was the offensive team (the one that lost the ball) then puts its defensive players out there (they are different as it's different skills) and the team that was the defensive team (the one that got the ball) then puts its offensive players out there. That's basically how it works. For soccer, or football/futbol as it's called in the rest of the world, there don't seem to be plays, just a bunch of guys kicking the ball back and forth and back and forth until one gets lucky and gets it into the goal net. This can lead to a 0-0 score after the 90 minutes of play, then 0-0 after the overtime periods, then finally a penalty kick faceoff. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noOHdTQd6H8 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noOHdTQd6H8&feature=related> &feature=related Carleton From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Pat Naughtin Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 15:50 To: U.S. Metric Association Cc: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:45989] Re: FIFA Football Fields On 2009/10/10, at 03:49 , Pierre Abbat wrote: What if the field were set to 90 meters? (Disclaimer: I know practically nothing about football. I know what a field looks like and what a ball looks like. That's about it.) Pierre Dear Pierre, If the football field was set to 90 metres then a first-down could be reset to: 'the whole nine metres'! However, like you, I know little about this type of football. Cheers, Pat Naughtin Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, that you can obtain from http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html PO Box 305 Belmont 3216, Geelong, Australia Phone: 61 3 5241 2008 Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA. Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST, and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. 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