Soccer terminology help

A goal is scored, the ball carried back to midfield and set down.

Player approaches, kicks really hard and it goes right in the goal. Is that a "kickoff" and a "kickoff goal" or is there another word for the first kick that starts the action? I really have no idea.

 

Is that legal? I thought the kickoff was an indirect kick. As a side note, what was the goalie doing at the time?

 

That should be illegal. The kickoff is an indirect kick.

 

The ball must be touched off to a player before a shot occurs.

 

Ah, one of my reporters was at the game. Now that I quiz him a little more he's not sure it was actually right when the ball was dropped, or whether there had been a pass or two. Apparently he'll be writing around it.

It is a "kickoff" though?

 

Correct.

 

The ball does have to be touched before it can be shot. In most instances, people who are reading the story would understand that going in.

With that said, most times I've heard of it happening, the writer has usually put something like, "The Bulls answered straight from the following kickoff, as Johnny Wintershorts took the ball and lobbed Podunk's goalkeeper from the halfway line."

 

Yes. To get around the indirect, that's why you have a forward tapping the ball back before blasting it ahead.

 

I have got to know...

How in hell did this happen? Was the keeper up celebrating the goal and didn't get back in time to defend the shot off the kick-off? Or was the keeper just God-awful?

 

And, in most cases, you don't "blast" the ball forward since you want to maintain possession. It sounds like Pilot's guy was covering a really poorly played soccer game.

 

Apparently he was too far forward and the ball flew too far above him, but just low enough to make it in. And it was most definitely a poorly played soccer game.

 

It is one of the enduring myths of soccer rules that a kickoff is an indirect kick. It is not. The only requirement is that you kick forward. You can check this out in the NCAA rulebook, available on the Web. The last sentence of Rule 8, Section 2 reads: "A goal may be scored directly from the kickoff.''