How many players are on a soccer team?
A soccer team has 11 players on the field: 10 outfield players and 1 goalkeeper. A match cannot start or continue if a team has fewer than 7 players.
The Laws of the Game, set by the International Football Association Board, say each team fields 11 players, one of whom must be the goalkeeper. If players are sent off with red cards or injured without substitutes available, a team can keep playing as long as it has at least 7 players.
Outfield players are usually grouped as defenders, midfielders and forwards. Coaches describe their lineups with formations such as 4-4-2 or 4-3-3, counting defenders first and forwards last.
Substitutes and squads
In top competitions, teams can now make up to five substitutions in a match, a rule made permanent after the COVID-19 pandemic, plus an extra one in some competitions for suspected concussions. The full squad is bigger than the team on the field: World Cup squads have had 26 players since 2022. Smaller versions of the game, such as futsal and five-a-side, use five players per team.
Did You Know?
Early soccer games in England sometimes had 15 or 20 players a side. The 11-player rule was fixed by the 1870s, and goalkeepers were only allowed to handle the ball anywhere in their own half until 1912.