What Are Tactical Timeouts In Football?

FourFourTwo

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?

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

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

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

00:15a small break in play.

00:17But not before the manager is able to gather some or all of his players together in a little

00:21huddle and just tweak how they're doing things on the pitch.

00:23What a happy coincidence for all involved.

00:25Or is it?

00:26Yes, my friends, welcome to the brave new world of the tactical timeout.

00:34Now in the recent Champions League quarterfinal second leg clash between Manchester City and

00:37Bayern Munich, Ederson stopped play for around 30 seconds to a minute.

00:41Immediately following 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.

00:47So he had to just sort that out.

00:49And while he did so, Pep Guardiola summoned Bernardo Silva over, gestured to him that

00:53the ball needed to go onto the left hand side more than it was on the right hand side.

00:56And mere minutes later, Manchester City get a penalty from that exact part of the pitch.

01:01But the thing is, Ederson isn't the only goalkeeper doing things like this this season.

01:04An entire host of them across the Premier League and across Europe have become very,

01:08very good at this.

01:09The undeniable masters of it at the moment are Nicasia United's Nick Pope and Arsenal's

01:13Aaron Ramsdale, the latter of which used it to simply beautiful effect in their top of

01:17the table clash against City.

01:19Now in that game, Arsenal started fairly brightly.

01:20They 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.

01:26They found Erling Haaland unmarked at the back post and were it for any Manchester City

01:30player gambling on his cutback, they would have gone 1-0 up.

01:34Ramsdale immediately looks to the bench, drops to the floor and just for good measure throws

01:38off both of his boots in the process.

01:40The camera cuts to the touchline, presumably about to catch Arteta sending the physio on

01:44or calling back to the substitute goalkeeper, looking quite panicked at the fact his goalkeeper

01:47might be injured.

01:48But instead, it doesn't find that.

01:50It finds the entire Arsenal team in a huddle on the touchline.

01:54The physio is not summoned and the substitute does not warm up and a minute later Ramsdale

01:58is back on his feet, ready to go and up until the point Manchester City get the first goal,

02:03Arsenal look pretty good.

02:04Same again, Newcastle vs Fulham earlier in the season, the Magpies haven't quite got

02:07a 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.

02:15What could possibly have hurt Nick Pope when he's had virtually nothing to do all day?

02:19Oh jeepers, hope he's alright.

02:21The physio is summoned this time and he goes to have a quick look to see if everything's

02:24okay with Nick Pope, when Eddie Howe takes the opportunity to give his team a quick talking

02:28to.

02:29And you're not going to believe this, Nick Pope was absolutely fine, back on his feet

02:32within 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

02:37nothing wrong with Edison's boot or Ramsdale's foot or Pope's body in general.

02:42It's that goalkeepers are told to go down in these moments, either from the bench or

02:45pre-game, in order to buy their team a timeout.

02:49And these seem to exclusively take place in the first half of games because, as anybody

02:53who watches football will tell you, referees seem to use a different watch for the first

02:5745, don't they?

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

03:01You 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.

03:08In fact, as recently as March of this year, Chelsea's women's manager Emma Hayes even

03:11spoke out about this after their side lost 3-1 in the Conte Cup final.

03:15She accused Arsenal goalkeeper Manuela Zinsberger of going down three times to force a tactical

03:19timeout during the game.

03:21So the question is, is this cheating?

03:24The 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

03:34the field, you still have to be removed before you can re-enter it.

03:37But the exemption to this rule is if you are a goalkeeper, because you can't just take

03:41the goalkeeper off and continue with the game, because that would be really silly.

03:44So when one of them is injured or needs some kind of treatment, the game is forced to effectively

03:48completely stop.

03:49Which is of course allowing these team talks to happen, and you could argue, giving the

03:52team doing it an advantage.

03:54So what the game's governing bodies are going to have to do is look at whether or

03:57not that advantage is an unfair one, and if it is, how best to deal with it.

04:01Because it's all well and good just to say it's unsporting behaviour, or it's time

04:04wasting and give a yellow card for doing it, but how do you prove either way if it's

04:09genuine?

04:10And even if it is a bit shady, it's not like the advantage it provides is one that

04:12was hitherto unimaginable before goalkeepers started pretending they had a slightly sore

04:17leg.

04:18Like timeouts are a thing that exist in plenty of other sports.

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

04:24be to actually give them a timeout.

04:27I don't know how I feel about that.

04:29Like what are the three things American sports have that British sports don't?

04:32Well, one, really annoying picture in picture advertising.

04:35Two-

04:36And three, timeouts.

04:51So the question for you all today, is the act of a goalkeeper feigning an injury or

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

05:00to reorganise his tactics in some kind of quasi-timeout, is that cheating?

05:06Should it be banned?

05:07And if so, how would you ban it?

05:09All that good stuff in the comments below, and of course, don't forget to like, share

05:12and subscribe.

05:13Welcome to the 442 YouTube channel.

05:14I can't even remember if I said my own name at the start, but it's Adam Cleary, by the

05:17way.

05:18You can get me on Twitter at adamcleary, C-L-E-A-R-Y.

05:19The entire 442 social spectrum is at 442, and until next time, my friends, I will see

05:25you soon.

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

05:29Goodbye!

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