How to Play Indoor Soccer: Learning the Game, Part 2

This part of a multiple article series of playing "the beautiful game" of soccer indoors, with walls, in the six versus six (6v6) fast-paced, high-scoring environment.

This article is Part Two of the 'Learning the Game' section. Let's take a look at the rules that differ between the traditional outdoor eleven versus eleven and the indoor 6v6 games.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Avoid slide tackles... unless it's legal for your league. The turf is far more forgiving on your skin than it used to be, but slide tackling is still usually off limits. It may have to do with the walls and not sending people flying into them, but that's just me speculating.

2. Forget throw ins. The walls don't cover the full height to the ceiling (at least not the fields I've seen). So there's a netting above them, and if your team kicks ball into them, the opposing team gets possession through a restart on the field with the ball placed on a line, near where the ball hit the ceiling net, a goal kick, or a corner kick (sort of - see below).

3. Take corner kicks from the, er, uh, corner? The fields are rounded where the corner flags would be on an outdoor field. So there's a little dot near the corner where you place the ball for corner kicks.

4. Bring on the seventh player (if you find yourself down by a lot of goals). To keep the game fun and competitive, your league may allow you to bring on the extra player if your team is down by five goals.

5. Beware the penalty box. If you commit a hard foul or demonstrate un-sportsman-like conduct, you may find yourself sitting in the penalty box, just like hockey. Then your team has to play shorthanded while you wait for your penalty time to expire.

6. Substitute whenever you want - in many leagues. It's acceptable and even expected in many leagues to substitute during play. This keeps the pace of the game faster with fresh players and allows for an easy breather after you've sprinted a bit.

7. Watch the icing... three lines rule, that is. At the expense of another hockey analogy, you are not allowed to send the ball across the length of the field, such as the three lines you'll see on many fields. This may be related to the lack of offside rule below.

8. Be as offside as you wish. Most leagues have no offside rule. It's probably because there's no linesman to call it, but that's me speculating again.

9. Keep reading. More to follow in the links below!

Resources

• Previous Article: Learning the Game, Part 1
• Next Article: Learning the Game, Part 3
• Practice for Adult League Soccer
• Train (Condition) for Adult League Soccer