Football History: The Love Loophole

A little known rule in soccer is the so called “love loophole”. While nominally a no-contact sport, if your intention is genuinely to cuddle your opponent as you grapple them away from the ball then it's not technically a foul. It's a difficult maneuver to pull off - you need to be able to shed your competitive motivations for a moment and genuinely see your opponent as a human being, heart to heart, before you go in for the cuddle so that it comes from a place of warmth and love.

The last great footballing snuggler was Bulgarian Nikolay Stoyanov. Stoyanov played a roaming position on the pitch, cuddling keepers and strikers alike. He had an uncanny ability to recognise any opponent as being deserving of love and to switch mindsets in an instant from fierce competitor to caring cuddle partner.

It was said that a hug from Stoyanov felt like a return to the womb. Many a footballing great in the 70s would describe themselves suddenly falling into an embrace that had them feeling a love and security that they'd never felt before. Only to snap back to reality moments later and realise they'd missed a sitter.

Famously, in the closing minutes of the 1972 world cup quarterfinal between Bulgaria and England, Stoyanov sprinted nearly the entire length of the pitch to tackle the English goalkeeper Roger Johnson to the ground, allowing Bulgarian striker Georgi Ivanov to slot the ball home into an open goal. In the midst of the ensuing chaos, cameras caught Johnson looking at Stoyanov through teary eyes and whispering "thankyou".

Will a snuggler of Stoyanov's quality ever grace the game again? It's hard to imagine in today's digital age, where social media has us making fewer genuine human connections than ever before. Some even want to see the obscure rule scrapped, calling it archaic or "of a different era". I for one, count myself among those who would like to see football embrace its cuddly history.