Oscars special: How football goalkeepers with glorious time-wasting theatrics chew the clock, featuring Jordan Pickford and Emi Martinez

A new law allows referees to award corners and indirect free-kicks if goalkeepers hold onto the ball for more that eight seconds from next season.

Everton and England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford (left) and Aston Villa and Argentina goalkeeper Emi Martinez Martinez. (File)

The only earthly abode where time wasting does not denote inaction is perhaps a football field. To run the clock down, footballers feign injuries, clutch their limbs in pain, roll on the grass, pose as though the roof has crumbled on them, so much so that it is theatre unto itself. It’s the opposite of the phrase in the lexicon—spending time doing nothing. But footballers have transformed it into a specialised (dark) art, and 140-odd years later, the lawmakers have emerged none the wiser in eliminating the malaise (or genius) that has plagued the sport, continuing to devise clampdown measures.

So to bell the old but pesky cat, the International Football Association Board (IFAB) has reached a consensus that football’s worst time-keepers are the goalkeepers, and so referees will award corners and indirect free-kicks if they hold onto the ball for more that eight seconds from next season. The prevailing law affords only six seconds, but has been leniently implemented. Even the most hard-fisted referee refrains from awarding indirect free kicks, unless in extreme cases. The conditions too are loosely coded. The clock would now start when the goalkeeper is deemed to have effective possession of the ball. The tweak, experimented with “positive outcomes” in Italy’s under-20 Primavera 1 league, where goalkeepers released the ball in five seconds, would come into effect from July and be used in all tournaments and leagues worldwide.

The goalkeepers’ brethren would feel the world is conspiring against them. As such, their responsibilities have only swelled. From merely guarding the goal, they are expected to use their feet, act as an auxiliary sweeper, initiate the attack, play-make and even assist goals (Manchester City net-minder Ederson has as many assists as Arsenal playmaker Martin Odegaard). The back-pass rule, four-step diktat, six- second time-limit. they have systematically adjusted to rule tweaks across decades.

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But it is beyond argument that goalkeepers are the thespians in the art of wasting time. Since 2013-14, the gloved men feature most consistently in the instances of yellow cards being brandished for time-wasters. Ten of the top-12 offenders in the English Premier League are goalkeepers. Seven of them are active—the list not startlingly includes Emi Martinez, Jordan Pickford, irresistibly prone to theatre. It has famously back-fired for Martinez, in a game against Arsenal last season, though he had tipped the ball over the crossbar and immediately plunged on the grass, ready to reel in pain, before the ball rebounded off his crossbar, ricocheted off his head and rolled into the nets. Such stray moments of pantomime aside, he has perfected the act of wasting time.

Perhaps, it is an occupational hazard. The scope of outfielders are limited. They can, at best, brood on free kicks, throw-ins or stagger to the dugout during substitutions. But goalkeepers, for the sheer reason that they can hold onto the ball with their hands, are the most eligible candidates for this role.

No keeper in modern football can pretend to be saints. It is just that some do it more than others, elevating it into nuanced craft that requires planning and practice. Pickford, the Everton keeper, catches the ball, clutches it to his chest, as though it is a holy relic, falls down without any provocation, grimaces as though he has hurt himself, rears his head up a few times, and gets up only when everyone has vacated the area. He would get up in slo-mo, as though his limbs were seriously hurt, then slowly place the ball on the turf, snail back a few yards to hoof the goal kick, then meditate on the ball indefinitely, until the referee whispers sweet nothings in his ears. A good twenty seconds are gloriously wasted. Other familiar sights include fumbling deliberately, pretending that it was a genuine mistake and diving on it, or letting the ball burst through the palms (not goal-bound). Or playing tiki taka with defenders.

Often, it’s a team plan. Ben Foster, previously of Manchester United, was another artist of time-trimming. “I played under Tony Pulis and he was the world’s best at making you waste time. If you went 1-0 up or something, his instruction was, ‘You’ve got to time waste’. Me, as a goalie, I would be the first guy to enforce that. I would take my time with a goal kick, I’d take ages over it,” he said two years ago. It is something of an unspoken tactic on the strategy table.

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It’s not just about the seconds, but how it gives the defending team the undue advantage of breathing space, an opportunity to reset the shape and destroy the momentum of the opposite team. Adding time at the end of the game might not really account for the lost minutes.

Stringent cautioning, though, has elevated the average minutes of action in a Premier League game from 48 in 2022-23 to 55 last edition. But that has not eliminated the evils altogether.The new law, the football world believes, would reduce the theatrics and keep

the ball longer. But implementation would not be as straightforward as the wording of the rule. It could be lost in referee’s interpretation and has the scope to stir scandals. Besides, if history offers lessons, goalkeepers, the alley cats of the game, would adapt and discover fresh means to “chew the clock.”