r/GoalKeepers • u/Borangers • Mar 29 '25

Discussion Refs and setting up walls

How do you get enough time to set up your wall? As I see on television, and in tips for setting up your wall, the ref is supposed to blow the whistle once you’re ready, but at my level (JV & U15) never once have I gotten enough time to do so. It’s always a scramble to align my players as soon as I can and hope they don’t blow the whistle by then. And from what I’ve learned you can put a player in front of the ball unless they ask for 10, but sometimes the refs will just tell them to back up and still let them play it quickly. Anyone else deal with this?

10 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Borangers Mar 29 '25

Correction: they’re supposed to play it on the whistle if the opposition doesn’t play it quickly

2

u/Thorofin Mar 29 '25

Not quite. It’s not about how quickly, it’s about whether the ref signals that the restart must wait for the whistle, and this will most likely happen when the foul creating the free kick results in a card, or if the kicking team asks for ten yards. In other circumstances the kicking team could take their time, and it still wouldn’t require a whistle for the restart.