The Role Of Physics In Soccer

Soccer has become an important part of the culture in America. Recently, the Women’s National Soccer team even won one of the biggest honors possible, the World Cup. People play and watch soccer games all of the time and yet few people actually realize the physics that are involved in almost everything that they see or do. While there are multiple ways that physics is used in a soccer game, this paper explores three parts and the physics that are involved in each one. The three parts that are going to be discussed are passing, heading, and throw-ins. These three can explain how physics can work from a soccer ball coming or going in each and every direction. Also, every part that is discussed uses different parts of the body. This can go to …show more content…
The player could just hit it with their foot, or maybe a thigh. Depending on how high the ball is, the player can use their chest or even their head. When a player goes up and hits the ball with their head there are physics at work. When a player goes up to head a ball in a soccer game something called an elastic collision occurs. An elastic collision is defined as “when the total kinetic energy of two objects before a collision is equal to the total kinetic energy of the two objects after the collision” (). So the total kinetic energy is the same after the soccer ball hits the players head as it was before it did. If the soccer ball hits a players head while it is at rest, a portion of the kinetic energy is transferred over to the players head since it was at rest. This is why soccer players are told to push there head back and move their head into the soccer ball. By doing this, the player can use the movement of the soccer ball and push it to where they want it to go with some speed. If the player just lets the ball hit their head, the ball can bounce off at any angle. Yet if the soccer player moves their head into the ball, they can have more control over where the ball …show more content…
A soccer throw-in is when the soccer ball is played out of bounds of the field and a player has to enter the ball back in bounds. The team that touched the ball last lost possession so a player from the opposite team gets to throw the ball back in bounds. The player that throws the ball back into bounds grabs the ball with both hands and puts the ball all the way behind their head. The player then proceeds to bring the ball over their head. They then release the ball and try to throw it as hard as they can to their teammates. When a player throws a ball in, the ball does not just travel in an upward direction. If the ball did that then soccer players would never get the ball where they want it to go. The ball is put into the playing field again by