Manipulating the 23-man World Cup squad

Posted by Creaven on January 14, 2010 under World Cup | 5 Comments to Read

This has happened to everyone. You have a fantastic idea, but it’s so obvious you assume someone else has already thought of it. So you dismiss it, thinking there must be some fatal flaw in your idea that doesn’t make it possible.

I’m 75 percent sure this idea (which I will get to, I promise) won’t work because of some rule I’m not familiar with. But, if there isn’t a rule, and you can do this, then all 32 World Cup head coaches should take advantage of it.

It’s really simple. In a couple months, teams that qualified for the World Cup will name their 23-man rosters. Of those 23 players, three have to be goalies*(read note at the bottom). So here’s the idea: For the three mandatory goalie spots, coaches should name two “real” goalies and one field player, but just call the field player a goalie.

For example, pretend you’re England coach Fabio Capello. It’s May 15th and you’re filling out your 23-man roster. You want to bring Michael Owen to South Africa, but you don’t have a spot for him. Your three goalies are David James, Scott Carson and Joe Hart. Wouldn’t you rather have Owen on the squad than Joe Hart? So…make Owen your third “goalie.”

Of course, Owen won’t play goalie, he’ll play striker like he always does, but why not just call him a goalie? I’ve literally spent hours looking for the official 2010 World Cup squad rules on the Internet and haven’t found it (if someone knows where it is, please tell), but I’ve never heard of there being a litmus test for goalkeepers. I did look over FIFA’s Laws of the Game and there are no rules restricting goalies from becoming field players or field players from becoming goalies. But, like I wrote a couple paragraphs ago, it’s hard for me to imagine there isn’t some rule restricting this because someone else would have already taken advantage of the loophole.

Some would argue even if you could manipulate the goalie roster spots you shouldn’t, because it’s too risky to only have two goalkeepers. It’s a bad argument. Can anyone think of a World Cup, European Championships, African Cup of Nations, Gold Cup, Confederations Cup or any national team tournament when a team had to use their third goalie because of injuries or suspensions to the other two? I don’t have an encyclopedia knowledge of the sport, so maybe it has happened once or twice, but it’s highly unlikely. The risk of losing both goalies is significantly outweighed by the benefits of having an extra field player. I dare someone to debate me on this .

I don’t want to get too deep into the ramifications of manipulating the goalie roster spots until I know if it can be done or not. So I turn it over to you, soccer blog reader. Can someone find the actual World Cup squad rules in writing? Are there clear guidelines on who is and who is not considered a goalie? If there isn’t, why hasn’t anyone taken advantage of it?

Note: I’m not even 100 percent sure it’s mandatory a team must name three goalies to the squad. I’ve heard and read commentators talk about it but I’ve never actually seen the rule. Could it be possible coaches name three goalies to the squad just because they think they should? I sure hope not.