For the statement “It has to enter the field from the team’s own half of the field close to the penalty mark facing the opposite touch line, as indicated by the referee.” (occurs multiple times), what does “as indicated by the referee mean”? Does that mean that the referee can choose/force the team to enter from a particular side? In human soccer all players enter just from the one side.
In line 1365, the following text is struck out: “The opponents of the team taking the kick-off are outside the centre circle until the ball is in play”. Yet in line 646 it says that opponents must be 1.5m (typo, should be 0.75m) away until the ball is in play. This is equivalent to the struck out line above. What is the clarification here? We are confident that line 646 is the intended correct rule, because otherwise defenders could be manually placed or auto-positioned 1cm behind the ball for a kick-off, which is not like human soccer, but this should be fixed.
What happens to a robot that is entering the game for a drop ball? Where can they start auto-positioning from? The whole touch and goal lines in their own half? Just from the spot in line with the penalty mark?
Can a goal be scored directly from a kick-off by the defending team if the attacker has failed to touch the ball? Line 632 can be interpreted both ways (yes/no).
Yes, the referee indicates if the robot enters from the touch line which is close to the team area or from the opposite touch line. The reason is, as in previous years, to not grant an advantage to teams that suffered from a penalty by letting the robots walk in very close to the ball. The only thing that changed from last year is that the robot is not entering close to the center line, but close to the penalty mark. This should make it easier for teams to resolve the symmetry of the field.
I think this is a mistake, the line should not be struck out.
They start auto-positioning from wherever they are when the drop ball is called, or if they are just recovering from a removal penalty, they should be treated similar to after a normal removal penalty, so they should enter from outside the touch line close to the penalty mark.
I think this is a problem with the rule that was (unintentionally) removed that a goal can only be scored from within the opponents half of the field, right? If we take this rule back in, the problem should be solved.
FIFA rules are “A goal may be scored directly from the kick-off.” Depending on the artificial grass and the size of the field (going to more than double in 2020 according to our roadmap), scoring from kick-off point may not be that easy. However, this year we will start with awfully large goals.
Line 668 says “A goal can be scored directly from a dropped ball.”, and we know that a robot taking a kick-off may not score directly off a kick-off (line 632). The question is whether a defending robot (one in the team not taking the kick-off) can kick the ball directly into the goal once the ball is in play and the robot is legally allowed to touch the ball. All logic would say yes, but we are just looking for this to be said more clearly in line 632. For example: A goal may not be scored directly from the kick-off, for the team taking the kick-off.
This is not related to the rule of only being able to score from the opponent’s half because for example the goal is counted if it’s from a drop ball, in which case the ball is in exactly the same position.