A tweet in which one sees Fonte staying in the field during the exultation of Portugal became viral generating a domino effect that perhaps infected the England match.
Yesterday morning the Twitter account @BantsFootballFC published a video of the exultation of Cristiano Ronaldo after the goal of 3-3 to Spain in which you see all the players of Portugal chasing their captain, who is screaming at the stands just beyond the lateral line.
Almost all of Fernando Santos's players embrace each other as they leave the field spontaneously. Except one, who is told to stay beyond the line and not to participate in the rejoicing.
The last to reach the shed was Fonte, who just before crossing the line of the lateral foul was instructed (perhaps) by Bernardo Silva, like a dog to whom the owner says he does not enter a room. Fonte diligently executes the order: you see him watching his companions rejoice, cheering on the spot with his feet just before the line of the lateral foul, alone.
@BantsFootballFC in the caption of the video explains that the attitude of Fonte is justified by a rule of FIFA, according to which if all the players of a team leave the field of play during the celebrations for a goal, the opposing team is allowed to take the kick-off.
But is there really a rule like this? What would be the point of this?
Submerged by requests for clarification, the same account then published three screenshots of the exultation following Kane's second goal against Tunisia, in which he sees Trippier remain in the field, in the half of the opponent's field, while his teammates submerge the striker of Tottenham next to the line of the lateral foul.
I'm not a fanatic of the rules and this morning, when I checked my timeline for the first time, I tweeted @BantsFootballFC's tweet without thinking twice, believing that football was able to surprise me in new and unexpected ways - and that there's always something we don't know even about our most visceral passions (or our work).
Browsing through the tweet replies, I noticed that many users were pointing out that such a rule didn't really exist, and I was horrified when I realized that I believed in a ridiculous fake news.
So, does this rule exist or not?
To be forgiven I tried to investigate but I must confess immediately that I feel a little disappointed that I did not fully understand whether this rule exists or not.
The eighth law of the IFAB regulation (the independent authority that decides on the rules of the game), the one entitled "The Start and Restart of Play", does not include anything of this kind, at least not in a specific way.
Among the rules of the first paragraph ("Kick-off Procedure") it is stated that before kick-off all players (it is not specified of which team, so it is assumed that all 22 players) must be in their own half of the field, except the one who kicks it off.
This rule, however, is the one that @BantsFootballFC seems to be following in a further tweet of clarification, in which he states that "the real rule" provides that if a player stays inside the opposing half of the field, the team that has suffered the goal cannot take the kick-off: "If all the players leave the opposing half of the field - regardless of whether it is outside the field of play or not - then the opponents can start the game again".
The only other regulatory argument that I have been able to find in defence of this interpretation is in the third law, in the paragraph "Numbers of Players", which states that: "If a team has fewer than seven players because one or more players have deliberately left the field of play, the referee is not forced to stop the game and may give advantage".
But the referee in any case should restart the game with the whistle after the goal, before giving advantage. This paragraph is particularly cryptic: does it mean that the referee, in the case in which part of a team leaves the field during the game remaining with less than 7 players (you cannot play in less than 7), instead of whistling the end and give the won game by forfeit, can give advantage by continuing the game? And can the 11 vs 6 team play, score and then the game ends?
So perhaps a certain dose of nonsense is already part of the football rules (unless I'm missing something) and then perhaps the referees should really decide a World Cup match based essentially on the interpretation of @BantsFootballFC, an account that does not seem to have the reliability of a New York Times journalist (without offence, I will investigate it and I invite all readers to do so).
So why did Fonte not celebrate with the others?
On the other hand, when you watch the video, it is impossible not to believe that interpretation: Fonte stops specially inside the playing field and Bernardo Silva seems to tell him not to cross the line. With the exception of a directive or some other FIFA report that has clarified this grey area of the regulation - which if a reader for some reason knows will already be making fun of me - then there are not many other possibilities that have nothing to do with the rules of the game.
I will try to list the most plausible of those that would have nothing to do with the rules:
- Fonte doesn't like to embrace people (perhaps the most likely, if you see the way he plays football)
- Bernardo Silva doesn't like Fonte
- The sweat of his comrades is disgusting to Fonte
- Fonte has an excessive respect for what Bernardo Silva says
- Bernardo Silva is a follower of @BantsFootballFC
- Bernardo Silva is the admin of @BantsFootballFC and it's all a great international trolling plan
- Someone trolled the players and told them that there was a rule like this and they believed it (were you @BantsFootballFC?).
- In Russia there is a law that determines the maximum number of people who can embrace each other
- In Russia there is a law that imposes a maximum number of people who can embrace Cristiano Ronaldo
- Cristiano Ronaldo explicitly asked Fonte not to take part in the celebration of one of his goals
- @BantsFootballFC is a group of Russian hackers hired by Putin to generate interest around the World Cup.
Excluding all these hypotheses (but you never know), it would seem that FIFA has in fact instructed teams on the interpretation of this part of the rules, also because in the absence of anything new, it would not be clear why footballers should know such an absurd rule.
In short, put yourself in the shoes of Bernardo Silva: you are at your first World Cup and you have just scored against Spain with an incredible goal of one of the most incredible players in the history of football, as well as your captain; you are running to celebrate for a 3-3 while thousands of people in the stands scream and wiggle; and in the midst of all this you must remember a dusty interpretation of the rules of the game of football. And think also of Fonte, forced to look at his companions rejoice as a voyeur of the happiness of others, for a rule that if he didn't knew it, he hardly understood in those few seconds.
In any case, the question remains: why did Fonte not rejoice with the others?
As for Trippier, however, the only possible interpretation is that he has read the @BantsFootballFC tweet (successful trolling!). In any case, as an amateur footballer who rejoices immoderately when his team scores, I officially (?) ask FIFA to abolish this trick, in the case that it really exists.
Source: Ultimo Uomo
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