Cards are how the referee punishes misconduct. A yellow card is a warning and get two in one game and you’re sent off. A red card means you’re ejected immediately, and your team has to finish the game with ten players instead of eleven. No replacement allowed.
A soccer game is 90 minutes, but the clock never stops while the ball is in play. Not for injuries, substitutions, goal celebrations, or VAR reviews. To make up for all that lost time, the referee adds extra minutes at the end of each half. That’s called stoppage time (or added time), and it’s why games end at 93, 97, or sometimes past 100 minutes.
A player is offside if they’re closer to the opponent’s goal than the ball and the second-to-last defender when a teammate plays the ball to them. In plain terms: you can’t loiter by the other team’s goal waiting for a pass. The rule forces attackers to time their runs instead of cherry-picking.
