The Anatomy of the "Perfect Tackle"

So, I play a lot of soccer. Well, I try to play a lot, and love playing as you know.

This weekend the adidas team had the semi-finals of a tournament we have been playing in all winter. What made it worse was that we were playing Nike and ended up losing. That however is not the point of the story.

When I play soccer I do enjoy "getting stuck in" as my old coach used to say. it is cool, and something I feel like I bring to my team. Growing up in England you have soccer (football!!) in your blood and it is a lot more physical than it is over here. Consequently, the US style of play is often more skillful than it is back home. So, when i play I do tend to get called for a lot of fouls that weren't really fouls, but that is the way it goes.

My beautiful wife came to the semi-final and snapped some pics with our new camera. In 'sports mode' it is great at taking rapid fire pictures at sporting events so you capture all the action. Well, she managed to capture one of my tackles in motion. It was a great tackle, too, that ended up being called as a foul. Perfectly clean though. I have the proof !!!


Ball coming down, good balance, eye on the ball


Took and awkward touch, wrong footed the defender


Again, good balance, but the ball got away on the turf, had to track it down...


Need to track this down. You can't see it but the defender is closing in from the left of the screen (not that fat dude behind me...another guy

So here he is. He is ahead of me, and has the full on stright run, so I have to angle the body and get down to increase leverage. This is when 90% of tackles are pulled out of


The crucial point, and PROOF that i won it. the ball is behind his legs. This means he has either a) gone over the ball and is fouling me, or b) I have won the ball and got it past him


This is where I get called for the foul. Clearly, I have won the ball, and am ready to make the attack, but as he has gone ass over tit, I get called for the foul.


and I am up again, but am losing the ball anyway here


and the guy takes off, but the whistle is already gone.


...and finally I am not happy

So there you have it kids. Study hard, and have fun playing soccer.