Footballtricks.com -Throw ins waste time‏

Hello Everyone,

I love the game but one of the things that always raises my blood pressure watching young players play is throw ins. Read the attached article to hear my views. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts as often I find that coaches and parents have not thought about why but just follow the rules of the game. I say don't worry about the rules so much.


Look forward to hearing from you.

Sean

Footballtricks.com, Glencraig Crescent, Kinross, WA

Let’s Just Relax about Throw Ins

Hypothetically speaking what if I was to offer you a challenge I would give you free tickets, travel and accommodation to this year‟s Champions League Final if you could teach, in 10 minutes, a 15 year old who has never played the game before to
A) Take 5 correct throw ins in a row
Or
B) Hit 5 corner kicks near the penalty spot in a row
Which one would you choose Option A or Option B?
I think most people would choose Option A for the simple reason that you would almost certainly win if you did as it is quite easy for a 15 year old to learn the „Throw In‟ technique and the rules within a short time.
Obviously it is a lot harder for younger players to co-ordinate their hands and feet plus throw the ball accurately because I have attended many youth games (12 and under) were the action has been held up because of foul throw ins. Sometimes play has been held up for a couple of minutes while the players continually take foul throw ins and the referee has following the letter of the law has called them repeatedly.
This issue really annoys me but for me to fully explain why it does I think I need to explain myself. Have you ever asked yourself why we throw the ball back in not kick it? At no other time in a game can an outfield player touch the ball with their hands so why can they do it for a throw in.
A throw in happens when the ball goes out of play on the sides of the pitch. No one has committed a foul in fact the majority of the time the ball goes out of play by accident. If you could kick the ball in then you could kick the ball a long distance from where it went out of play. The original law makers of the game thought that it was unfair that one team should be able to get such a territorial advantage when the other team had not done anything wrong. To limit the distance the ball could travel from where the ball went out they made a rule that the ball had to be thrown in.
If you look at all the rules of a throw in they are all basically put in place to limit the distance an adult can throw the ball from where it went out so that one team does not get an unfair territorial advantage over the other.
Now I can explain why foul throw ins annoy me so much in the youth game. The vast majority of foul throw ins we see are because of a technical breech of these limiting rules than for someone actually trying to gain an unfair advantage.
The young players simply have not got the physical strength to gain an unfair territorial advantage no matter how they throw the ball so why not just let the game continue as long as the player attempted to do it correctly. We never stop the game if a player does any other technique poorly. I have never seen a referee blow the whistle because a player did a poorly executed pass and ask for it to be retaken.
It drives me mad when I see coaches wasting precious time at training sessions on throw ins and hear people say “They have to learn to do it properly some time” when like I wrote at the top of the article most of you probably feel confident you could teach a 15 year old who has never played before in 10 minutes how to take a throw in. Coaches feel they have to do this because during games the players are constantly pulled up on it. I feel we shouldn‟t be too worried about foul throw ins until the players are old enough to actually throw the ball a distance were an advantage can be gained.
I am not saying that we need to change the rules but think we need to understand the spirit of those rules and if no advantage was gained then what does it matter. Don‟t worry about a young player having a toe on the sideline or little Jennifer lifting her foot an inch off the ground. Just get the ball back into play and let the players play.
I refereed a school tournament last year which had lots of players new to the game playing and before every game I said to the two coaches I am not going to give any foul throw ins no matter how poor the technique if they tried to do it correctly and the ball went less than 10m. There was a huge number of foul throw ins and it made absolutely no difference to the score of any of the games.
Please email me at info@footballtricks.com if you think this article make sense or is the biggest load of rubbish you have ever read.