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.

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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