What Are Tactical Timeouts In Football?

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After Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelsea and Newcastle have all been noticed doing it, is the rise of the "Tactical Timeout" in football bordering on cheating, or simply a clever way for managers to get instructions to their team?

Transcript

00:00Right now there seems to be something of a goalkeeping epidemic in football. At some

00:07point in the first half of a big game, usually when their team are up against it, goalkeepers

00:11are picking up a small injury or a problem with their equipment that forces a small break

00:16in play. But not before the manager is able to gather some or all of his players together

00:20in a little huddle and just tweak how they're doing things on the pitch. What a happy coincidence

00:24for all involved. Or is it? Yes my friends, welcome to the brave new world of the tactical

00:30timeout. Now in the recent Champions League quarter-final second leg clash between Manchester

00:37City and Bayern Munich, Edison stopped play for around 30 seconds to a minute. Immediately

00:41following a period of Bayern possession and them just having narrowly missed a chance,

00:45there was something wrong with his boots so he couldn't take the goal kick, so he had

00:48to just sort that out. And while he did so, Pep Guardiola summoned Bernardo Silva over,

00:52gestured to him that the ball needed to go onto the left-hand side more than it was on

00:55the right-hand side. And mere minutes later, Manchester City get a penalty from that exact

01:00part of the pitch. But the thing is, Edison isn't the only goalkeeper doing things like

01:03this this season. An entire host of them across the Premier League and across Europe have become

01:07very, very good at this. The undeniable masters of it at the moment, Ony Kassi United's

01:12Nick Pope and Arsenal's Aaron Ramsdale, the latter of which used it to simply beautiful

01:16effect in their top-of-the-table clash against City. Now in that game, Arsenal started fairly

01:20brightly, they had more of the ball, they were creating chances, but Manchester City very quickly

01:24got a handle on the situation and began turning the screw. They found Erling Haaland unmarked at

01:28the back post and were it for any Manchester City player gambling on his cutback, they would have

01:32gone 1-0 up. Ramsdale immediately looks to the bench, drops to the floor and just for good measure

01:37throws off both of his boots in the process. The camera cuts to the touchline, presumably about

01:42to catch Arteta sending the physio on or calling back to the substitute goalkeeper, looking quite

01:46panicked at the fact his goalkeeper might be injured, but instead it doesn't find that,

01:50it finds the entire Arsenal team in a huddle on the touchline. The physio is not summoned and the

01:55substitute does not warm up and a minute later Ramsdale is back on his feet, ready to go and

02:00up until the point Manchester City get the first goal, Arsenal look pretty good. Same again,

02:04Newcastle vs Fulham earlier in the season, the Magpies haven't quite got a handle on the game,

02:09they win a corner but as soon as the ball is turned over, oh no, Nick Pope goes to ground.

02:13The Sky commentary team are baffled by this, what could possibly have hurt Nick Pope when he's

02:17had virtually nothing to do all day? Oh jeepers, hope he's alright. The physio is summoned this

02:22time and he goes to have a quick look to see if everything's okay with Nick Pope and anyhow

02:25takes the opportunity to give his team a quick talking to. And you're not going to believe this,

02:30Nick Pope was absolutely fine, back on his feet within a minute and the game resumed.

02:33So if you somehow haven't quite grasped the concept of my tone right now, it's that there's nothing

02:37wrong with Edison's boot or Ramsdale's foot or Pope's body in general, it's that goalkeepers are told

02:43to go down in these moments, either from the bench or pre-game, in order to buy their team

02:48a timeout. And these seem to exclusively take place in the first half of games because, as anybody who

02:53watches football will tell you, referees seem to use a different watch for the first 45, don't they?

02:58Someone could be down for an hour, they would still just stick up two minutes at the end.

03:01If you try that sort of nonsense in the second half, you're probably going to get every single

03:04second added on, but do it in the first and nobody gives a shit. In fact, as recently as March of this

03:09year, Chelsea's women's manager Emma Hayes even spoke out about this after their side lost 3-1

03:13in the Conti Cup final. She accused Arsenal goalkeeper Manuela Zinsberger of going down

03:18three times to force a tactical timeout during the game. So the question is, is this cheating?

03:23Now the rules of the game state that when a player is injured, they must leave the field of play,

03:27and that rule was introduced to effectively stop players feigning an injury to time waste.

03:31It means that the game can continue without them, and if you do have to be treated on the field,

03:34you still have to be removed before you can re-enter it. But the exemption to this rule

03:38is if you are a goalkeeper, because you can't just take the goalkeeper off and continue with

03:42the game, because that would be really silly. So when one of them is injured or needs some

03:45kind of treatment, the game is forced to effectively completely stop. Which is of course allowing

03:50these team talks to happen, and you could argue, giving the team doing it an advantage.

03:54So what the game's governing bodies are going to have to do is look at whether or not that

03:57advantage is an unfair one, and if it is, how best to deal with it. Because it's all well and good

04:02just to say it's unsporting behaviour, or it's time wasting and give a yellow card for doing it,

04:05but how do you prove either way if it's genuine? And even if it is a bit shady, it's not like the

04:11advantage it provides is one that was hitherto unimaginable before goalkeepers started pretending

04:15they had a slightly sore leg. Like timeouts are a thing that exists in plenty of other sports.

04:20So it might well be that the only way to stop teams attempting to force a timeout would be to

04:25actually give them a timeout. I don't know how I feel about that. Like what are the three things

04:30American sports have that British sports don't? Well, one, really annoying picture in picture

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04:44burgers, we've got pick-up trucks. All for the low, low, low price of $1, not a five.

04:49And three, timeouts. So the question for you all today, is the act of a goalkeeper feigning an injury

04:55or just having some other kind of problem to force a break in play, allowing the manager to

05:00reorganise his tactics in some kind of quasi-timeout? Is that cheating? Should it be banned? And if so,

05:07how would you ban it? All that good stuff in the comments below. And of course, don't forget to like,

05:11share and subscribe. Welcome to the 442 YouTube channel. I can't even remember if I said my own name

05:15at the start, but it's Adam Cleary, by the way. You can get me on Twitter at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y.

05:19The entire 442 social spectrum is at 442. And until next time, my friends, I will see you soon.

05:26And to answer your other question, yes, yes, this is my favourite top in the world. Goodbye!

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