Association Football Terminology - R

R

• Rabona: method of kicking the football whereby the kicking leg is wrapped around the back of the standing leg.
• Red card: awarded to a player for either a single serious cautionable offence or following two yellow cards. The player receiving the red card is compelled to leave the game for the rest of its duration, and that player's team is not allowed to replace him with another player. A player receiving the red card is said to have been sent off or ejected.
• Reducer: hard tackle, usually early in a game, meant to intimidate an attacking player.
• Referee: the official who presides over a match, with the help of assistant referees and the fourth official.
• Replacement: see substitute
• Relegation: when a club moves down to a lower division in the league hierarchy as a result of gaining the least number of points in their division at the end of a season.
• Reserve team: team which is considered supplemental to the club's senior team. Matches between reserve teams often include a combination of first team players that have not featured in recent games, as well as academy and trial players.
• Retired number: squad number which is no longer used as a form of recognising an individual player's loyal service to the club. Sometimes a number is retired as a memorial after their death.
• Ronglish: phrases associated used by manager and pundit Ron Atkinson to describe action during a match. Expressions used by Atkinson include similes and verbal non sequiturs.
• Round-robin tournament: competition in which each contestant meets all other contestants in turn. A competition where each team plays the other teams twice is known as a double round-robin.
• Rounding the 'keeper: attacking move in which a player attempts to dribble the ball around the goalkeeper, hoping to leave an open goal.
• Route one: direct, attacking style of football which generally involves taking the most direct route to goal.
• Roy of the Rovers stuff: event during a game, or an entire game, in which a player or team is seen to have overcome some sort of extreme adversity prior to victory, or secured victory in an overtly spectacular or dramatic fashion, especially against a team generally considered to be "stronger". The term originates from the long-running football-themed English comic strip Roy of the Rovers, in which such events were commonplace.
• Row Z: cliché used by commentators to describe the hypothetical destination of a forceful clearance, on the assumption that rows in which spectators are seated are ordered alphabetically so that row Z is the furthest from the pitch. Also used to describe a shot which goes a long way over the crossbar.