Corner kicks in soccer are a fundamental part of the game. As a new soccer fan, you might have a lot of questions when it comes to corner kicks and how they work. I will be answering most of your questions (if not all) in this article.
Without any delays, let’s start with the first question that might come to your mind if you are new to soccer:
What is a corner kick in soccer?
A corner kick in soccer is one of the methods used to put the ball back in play after the ball goes outside the boundaries of the soccer field. Corner kicks are taken from one of the 4 corners of the field by one of the players of the team who was awarded the kick.
It’s fairly obvious that during a soccer game, the ball can leave the borders of the field at any moment, and that will put the ball out of play. So, soccer needs ways to put the ball back in play once the ball leaves the field, and one of these ways is the corner kick.
Now that you know what a corner kick is, naturally the next question becomes the following:
When is a corner kick awarded in soccer?
A soccer corner kick is awarded when the ball leaves the rectangular field by passing over one of the two goal lines. The team who isn’t the last to touch the ball before it leaves the field wins the corner kick.
Note that there’s only one exception to the above statement, and that is when the ball lands inside the net (inside the goal).
The net is placed on the goal line. This means that the ball will have to cross the goal line and land inside the net for a goal to be scored. So in other words, the only time a corner kick is not awarded when the ball passes over one of the goal lines is when a goal is scored.
In case you don’t know, here are the 2 goal lines of the soccer field.
Also, it’s worth mentioning that a corner kick can be awarded for reasons other than just the ball leaving the field of play. For example, if a player scored an own goal directly from a goal kick, then the goal is canceled and a corner kick is awarded to the opponent.
However, since these cases are extremely rare, I won’t dive into any of them in this article. In fact, even a soccer fan who has been watching soccer for more than a decade might not have seen some of these scenarios in a professional soccer game. That’s how rare they are.
Where is the ball placed during a corner kick in soccer?
During a corner kick in soccer, the player can place the ball anywhere inside the corner area. Note that the arc is considered part of the corner area. In other words, a soccer player can also place the ball anywhere on the corner arc during a corner kick.
In general, you’ll find out that the soccer players place the ball on the corner arc because they want to get more space when they are kicking the ball.
Since every corner has a flag, the player taking the corner kick will want to place the ball as far away from the flag as possible just so that they get more space while performing the kick.
Can a soccer game end during a corner kick?
If you have been watching soccer for a while, one thing that you might notice is that the referees do not interrupt a serious goal attempt even if the official time of the game has ended.
For example, if the time of the game has ended, but one of the teams is on their opponent’s side of the field trying to score a last second goal, then the referee might let them take their last chance instead of immediately ending the game once the injury time ends (you can learn more about the injury time in soccer from this article).
However, this is not part of the soccer rules at all. In other words, the referee can end the game whenever they want.
So to answer the question:
The referee of the soccer game can end the game whenever they want to. In other words, if the game time has ended, and one of the competing teams have won a corner kick, then the referee can decide to end the game and not give the team their corner kick.
What is a short corner kick?
A short corner kick is when the corner kick taker decides to pass the ball to a very close teammate instead of kicking the ball towards the penalty area and hoping that one of their teammates score from a header.
The reason why the ‘short corner kick’ is a term in the first place is because corner kicks are meant to be kicked towards the penalty area of the opponent. If a corner kick was just passed to a close teammate, then what makes it different from a regular throw-in?
For this reason, the term short corner kick was a thing. Short corner kicks have been used by a lot of great soccer teams however. For some teams, the short corner kicks can be a better strategy than kicking the ball high towards the penalty area.
For example, if a soccer team does not have any tall players that are capable of scoring header kicks during a corner kick, then why would the team decide to waste their chance every time they get a corner kick?
In this case, it is better for the team if they just do a short corner kick and keep the ball to themselves. This can give them a better chance of scoring.
Before I end this article, here are a few quick things that you might want to know about corner kicks:
- A goal can be directly scored from a corner kick.
- The offside rule does not apply during a corner kick
SUMMARY
A corner kick in soccer is a way to put the ball back in play after the ball leaves the field of play. Corner kicks are a great opportunity for a team to score a goal or to get very close to the opponent’s net.