Bundesliga rule changes for 2019-20: What you need to know

"That's crazy," Leipzig's new coach Julian Nagelsmann said of perhaps the biggest rule change planned for the coming season specifically in Germany: yellow and red cards for coaches. For instance, intentionally leaving the coach's marked zone is a straight red card. 

"Then I guess I'll spend a maximum of 15 games on the touchline," Nagelsmann joked. He's previously warned that refs would be much quicker to show coaches red and yellow cards than to banish them from the touchline, their previous means of punishment. Similarly, Werder Bremen's Florian Kohlfeldt sees the new rule as "borderline." Whether or not coaches who rack up a lot of yellow cards should face suspensions is yet to be decided: Germany's DFL league organization holds its start-of-season conference on August 21. 

Besides this change in the Bundesliga, the International Football Association Board (IFAB) has introduced the following major and minor rule changes: 

Another bid to clarify on handballs

Goals scored by hand, whether intentionally or otherwise, will never count. Contact with hand or arm that influences the game by changing possession or setting up an attack will also be penalized even if unintentional.

If the ball strikes a players arm when it's positioned in such a way as to make his body "unnaturally bigger," that's usually a free kick. The same applies if his arms are above his shoulders. If the ball touches a players hands or arms when it "is close to their body and has not made their body unnaturally bigger," that will generally not be a handball.

Also, if a player strikes a ball and it then ricochets onto his hand, that is unlikely to be a free kick. The same applies if it hits a defender's arm or hand from close range. 

Finally, if a goalkeeper tries to clear a back pass and "that clearance fails," he is subsequently permitted to pick the ball up instead.

No attackers in the wall

There'll be no more wrestling for position in the wall at free kicks. No more treading on each other's toes, or ducking or jumping at the last minute as a shooter tries to put the ball over or under a friendly face in the wall. That's because every time a defending team sets up a "full" wall, defined as three or more players in a line, then attackers must keep one meter (a little over 3 feet) clear of it.

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Second chance if referee gets in the way

One old German football saying, "the referee is air," no longer holds true. The idea was that the ref, obviously no less corporeal than any player, should be treated as air. If the ball struck them, play continued, no matter what their input did to change the game. Now, if the referee's accidental touch has a major impact on the game — a change of possession or the start of a promising attack or even a ball rolling into the net — then the referee takes the ball and gives it back to the "right" team.

No more drop balls

Old-fashioned drop balls have gone the way of the dodo, the golden goal and the days when being level with the last defender meant you were offside. From now on, the last team in possession of the ball will be given the ball. The one exception is when play was stopped inside a penalty area; then the goalkeeper will always receive the ball. Players on the other team must stay four meters back. 

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Just leave the pitch already! 

Italy and Serie A had perfected the art of the late time-wasting substitution: Rarely do professional footballers move so slowly as on the long walk back to the sideline for a substitution, which until now had to take place on the halfway line. From now on, the player leaving the pitch should exit at the closest point available, even if it's by the corner flag. The idea is simple enough: less time wasting and quicker restarts.

One foot on the line

Goalies will have to stop trying to pinch a yard at penalties. From now on, they will be expected to have at least one foot on their goal line when a penalty is struck. Approaching the shooter with one leg in preparation to dive remains permissible. 

Spoiled for (meaningless) choice

Of all the battles in a game of football, surely the coin toss is the most pointless. That may still be the case. But now, the captain who wins the toss will not only be able to choose which side they defend in the first half (as now), but he will also be allowed to opt to start with the ball instead, leaving the other captain to pick ends.