If you’ve been watching the World Cup so far, you probably know that one of the most thrilling moments so far was Cristiano Ronaldo’s free-kick goal to give him a hat trick and his team a tie.
All Portugal fans celebrated like crazy and so did the players… except for one. While the celebration was happening, you can see Portugal teammates to instruct one player from their side to stay on the pitch while the rest of the team celebrates. That caused some fans to realize what the loophole they were trying to fall victim to was.
Here’s where things get tricky, because the rule as that Twitter user stated it is not actually in the FIFA rule/law book. Where it may apply is on the rules of the kick-off. The law states that all players must be on their own half before the kick-off happens. So, with the goal-keeper still in his own half, fans are assuming that Spain would have been able to kick-off if all the other players were off the pitch, because while they aren’t necessarily in their own half, they aren’t in their opponents either.
We’ve yet to see anything like that play out in a real game, but it was clear that the team was aware of the rule – it will be interesting to see if other teams are aware as well.
