#64 What is the ideal pitch size for a professional soccer game?
Soccer 101
TSS
4.9 • 853 Ratings
🗓️ 3 July 2021
⏱️ 13 minutes
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Summary
On this week's episode, Taylor takes a deep (but brief) look at some different leagues and clubs around the world to determine 1) the actual requirements for a soccer pitch to be a soccer pitch but then 2) the most commonly used dimensions for professional soccer the world over. Plus, why are measurements different from country to country, and which leagues tend to have the biggest fluctuation in field size?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome everyone to soccer 101. |
| 0:12.5 | My name is Taylor Rockwell, and this week's episode is going to be pretty short and sweet because otherwise it's going to be me reading a lot of numbers. That's basically |
| 0:21.9 | math class or at least my memory of math class. Nobody needs that. But today we're going to be |
| 0:27.5 | looking at field size or pitch size. Don't want to annoy the European listeners too much. We're going to |
| 0:33.0 | try to figure out what the ideal field size might be. Anyone who has ever seen an NYCFC game, |
| 0:40.9 | the same day they maybe watched a Barcelona game, will tell you that field size is not |
| 0:45.6 | completely uniform. You have different lengths, different wits, average field size in professional |
| 0:52.1 | soccer. What is it? Which clubs have the biggest and smallest |
| 0:55.4 | pitches? All of those questions and more answered today. First off, let's get to the specific |
| 1:01.2 | answer to the question of field size. What is the field size of a professional field? Well, |
| 1:05.6 | the answer is there is no specific one set dimension. The International Football Association Board, or IFAB, the governing body that writes the rules of soccer, states that a full pitch size may be anywhere from 50 to 100 yards in width and 100 to 130 yards in length. |
| 1:24.2 | So you could have a very small field of 50 yards wide, 100 yards long. You could |
| 1:28.7 | have a very large, large, large field, which would be 100 yards wide and 130 yards long, but that |
| 1:34.7 | would be basically cricket. But those dimensions pertain to more so amateur fields, basically what |
| 1:40.8 | it takes to make an amateur game, an official game. On the professional side for international matches, the field dimensions are more tightly constrained. |
| 1:49.1 | The goal lines for international games must be between 64 and 75 meters wide. |
| 1:53.9 | That'd be 70 to 82 yards. |
| 1:55.7 | And the touchlines must be between 100 and 110 meters long, 110 to 120 yards. |
| 2:02.9 | So we get even more specific, even more defined. |
| 2:06.0 | And it seems to have been unofficially agreed if we're looking at sort of the usual, |
| 2:10.8 | typical field length for professional games. |
| 2:13.7 | The world's biggest clubs in leagues seem to have agreed that the pitch should be 105 meters long, 68 meters wide. Again, that isn't the rule, but it is what the |
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