17. The Corner Kick - The last of the 17 rules of soccer refers to the corner kick, which occurs when the ball passes over the defending player's goal line, with a defender having touched the ball last. The corner kick acts as a direct free kick taken from the corner of the pitch (if the ball passes the line on the left of the goal, the corner is taken from the left corner and if it passes on the right, the corner is taken from the right corner).
The same rules as for a direct free kick apply, in that opposing players must be at least 9.15 meters away from the corner, the corner taker may score directly from the corner kick and the kicker can't play the ball a second time until it's touched by another player. The only additional rule is that the ball be placed in the corner arc.
Well that's pretty much all you need to know about soccer and soccer rules. Most of these rules seem harder than they actually are on paper and if you watch a couple of matches you'll soon get the hang of them naturally. The only one that requires some special attention is the offside soccer rule, which indeed can be harder to understand without the proper explanation, so check out the offside article on the site for a more detailed clarification on that.
