Portugal can celebrate the goals, which dependency awaits | World Cup 2022
It seemed a matter of no particular importance and a detail only for those who like to “dig” in the laws of football, but the Press conference before the Portugal-Morocco match, the moment when Bernardo Silva interrupted the celebration of one of the goals against Switzerland🇧🇷
At that moment, the midfielder saw that he had all his colleagues off the field of play and, imbued with a pretense of sagacity, he returned to the pitch (see main image), in the Swiss half, so that the referee could not whistle for the restart – and, in theory, allow Switzerland to run quickly with the ball into the deserted goal.
This Thursday, after the subject had apparently already “dropped”, we saw with some surprise the moment when João Félix was asked about this detail by a foreign journalist🇧🇷 In a somewhat bizarre way, the player showed, like Bernardo, that he did not know the rules of the sport he plays.
“I don’t even know that rule. But, as we were all celebrating outside the field, he stayed inside, so they wouldn’t follow the game. There was no one behind and if they followed they would score. It was for the referee not to let the game go on”, explained FĂ©lix.
Law 8 of the Laws of the Game is quite clear about kick-off. “All players, except the one taking the kick-off, must be in their own half.”
To this explanation is added the text of Law 3, which says that “no game can start or continue if one of the teams has less than seven players (…) the referee must not restart the game if a team does not have the minimum of seven players.
Finally, even if a mental block removed legal precepts from the referee’s mind, no judge would allow a game to restart with a team celebrating a goal. If it weren’t for the law, it would be for common sense.