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?

Transcript

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

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

00:12picking up a small injury or a problem with their equipment that forces a small break in play. But

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

00:21and just tweak how they're doing things on the pitch. What a happy coincidence for all involved.

00:25Or is it? Yes my friends, welcome to the brave new world of the tactical timeout.

00:34Now in the recent Champions League quarter-final second leg clash between Manchester City and Bayern

00:38Munich, Edison stopped play for around 30 seconds to a minute. Immediately following a period of Bayern

00:42possession and them just having narrowly missed a chance, there was something wrong with his boots

00:46so he couldn't take the goal kick, so he had to just sort that out. And while he did so, Pep Guardiola

00:50summoned Bernardo Silva over, gestured to him that the ball needed to go onto the left-hand side more

00:55than it was on the right-hand side, and mere minutes later, Manchester City get a penalty

00:59from that exact part of the pitch. But the thing is, Edison isn't the only goalkeeper doing things

01:03like this 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 Nick Pope

01:12and Arsenal's Aaron Ramsdale, the latter of which used it to simply beautiful effect in the top of the

01:17table clash against City. Now in that game, Arsenal started fairly brightly, they had more of the ball,

01:21they were creating chances, but Manchester City very quickly got a handle on the situation and

01:25began turning the screw. They found Erling Haaland unmarked at the back post and were it for any

01:29Manchester City player gambling on his cutback, they would have gone 1-0 up. Ramsdale immediately

01:35looks to the bench, drops to the floor and just for good measure, throws off both of his boots in

01:39the process. The camera cuts to the touchline, presumably about to catch Arteta sending the

01:43physio on or calling back to the substitute goalkeeper, looking quite panicked at the fact his

01:47goalkeeper might be injured, but instead it doesn't find that, it finds the entire Arsenal team in a

01:52huddle on the touchline. The physio is not summoned and the substitute does not warm up and a minute

01:57later Ramsdale is back on his feet, ready to go and up until the point Manchester City get the first

02:02goal, Arsenal look pretty good. Same again, Newcastle versus Fulham earlier in the season,

02:06the Magpies haven't quite got a handle on the game, they win a corner but as soon as the ball is

02:10turned over, oh no, Nick Pope goes to ground. The 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. The physio is summoned this time and he goes to have a quick

02:23look to see if everything's okay with Nick Pope and anyhow takes the opportunity to give his team

02:27a quick talking to. And you're not going to believe this, Nick Pope was absolutely fine,

02:31back on his feet within a minute and the game resumed. So if you somehow haven't quite grasped

02:35the concept of my tone right now, it's that there's nothing wrong with Edison's boot or Ramsdale's

02:39foot or Pope's body in general, it's that goalkeepers are told to go down in these moments,

02:44either from the bench or pre-game, in order to buy their team a timeout. And these seem

02:49to exclusively take place in the first half of games because as anybody who watches football will

02:53tell you, referees seem to use a different watch for the first 45, don't they? Someone could be

02:58down for an hour, they would still just stick up two minutes at the end. If you try that sort of

03:02nonsense in the second half, you're probably going to get every single second added on,

03:05but do it in the first and nobody gives a shit. In fact, as recently as March of this year,

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

03:14Conti Cup final. She accused Arsenal goalkeeper Manuela Zinsberger of going down three times to

03:19force a tactical timeout during the game. So the question is, is this cheating? Now the rules of

03:24the game state that when a player is injured, they must leave the field of play and that rule was

03:28introduced to effectively stop players feigning an injury to time waste. It means that the game can

03:32continue without them and if you do have to be treated on the field, you still have to be removed

03:35before you can re-enter it. But the exemption to this rule is if you are a goalkeeper because you

03:40can't just take the 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. Which is of course allowing these team talks to happen and you could argue,

03:52giving the team doing it an advantage. So what the game's governing bodies are going to have to do is

03:56look at whether or not that advantage is an unfair one and if it is, how best to deal with it.

04:00Because it's all well and good just to say it's unsporting behaviour or it's time wasting and give a yellow card

04:05for doing it. But how do you prove either way if it's genuine? And even if it is a bit shady,

04:10it's not like the advantage it provides is one that was hitherto unimaginable before goalkeepers

04:15started pretending they had a slightly sore leg. Like timeouts are a thing that exists in plenty

04:19of other sports. So it might well be that the only way to stop teams attempting to force a timeout

04:24would be to actually give them a timeout. I don't know how I feel about that. Like what are the three

04:29things American sports have that British sports don't? Well one, really annoying picture in picture

04:34advertising too.

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

04:56other kind of problem to force a break in play, allowing the manager to reorganise his tactics

05:01in some kind of quasi timeout? Is that cheating? Should it be banned? And 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 and subscribe.

05:12Welcome to the 442 YouTube channel. I can't even remember if I said my own name at the start,

05:15but it's Adam Cleary by the way. You can get me on Twitter at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y. The entire 442 social

05:20spectrum is at 442. And until next time, my friends, I will see you soon. And to answer your

05:26other question, yes, yes, this is my favorite top in the world. Goodbye.

05:30Bye.

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