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What is 7-a-side football?
We are talking about a sport derived from soccer in which groups are formed by 7 players, hence its name. In 7-a-side football, almost everything is regulated, and these rigorous rules are used in all nations where it is played. In addition, they remain famous by the Royal Spanish Football Federation.
The squad of each team can be made up of up to twelve players. All of them will be able to participate throughout the game while the changes are made. The shoes used in 7-a-side football must have smooth soles, and the use of boots with studs is completely prohibited. The 7-a-side soccer fields can be both outdoors and indoors, however in both cases the playing field will be made of artificial grass.
The referee is the delegate of enforcing the rules, managing to warn the players with yellow and red cards. In the event that the referee shows 2 yellow cards to the same player in the period of a match, he will leave the game for only 2 minutes, managing to be replaced during that time by another player.
If the referee shows the red card to a footballer, he will be sent off instantly without having the option to re-enter the field, and the accessories will also have to wait 2 minutes to replace him. The fouls called by the referee accumulate, in such a way that once the teams have reached 6, an independent shot must be taken.
Rules that differentiate 7-a-side football from 11-a-side football
The first difference can be discovered in the measurements of the game lot. The radius of the central circle in 7-a-side football is 6 meters and in 11-a-side football it is 9.15 meters. Furthermore, the distance between the goal posts and its measurements are also different in each modality. The measurements of the goal area, penalty area and corner also vary from one style of play to another.
The rule that refers to the ball suggests the maximum and minimum circumference that it should have in 7-a-side soccer, which is different in 11-a-side soccer.
7 players make up all 7-a-side football teams, of which one of them will be the goalkeeper. There must always be at least 5 players in the game group, and in the event that this does not occur, the match will be concluded with the opposite team being declared the winner.
In 7-a-side football, up to twelve players can be called up, of which 5 are substitutes who will be able to enter and leave once their instructor takes them and with the permission of the referee. In 11-a-side football, it is played with eleven players, of which one acts as a goalkeeper. There are 7 substitutes, however only 5 have the possibility of entering the field to replace other players. The substituted player will never be able to return to the playing field.
Line judges are not mandatory in 7-a-side football. However, in 11-a-side football there are always 2, in addition to a fourth referee. The duration of the match is also different in each modality, as well as the distance of the kick-off, free kicks, penalties and corner kicks.
In the offside you can see a fairly clear difference. In 7-a-side football, an offside is generated on the line that is twelve meters from the baseline, but outside of it it does not exist. In 11-a-side football, the ball is the representative of marking the offside position whenever the player is in his own field.
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