Ron West Walnut Creek, Calif. Here’s another cap question. Does a player get a cap if he is on the active roster, but remains on the bench for the entire match? Mike Woitalla: Ron, a player must get on the field during the game to be awarded a cap. FIFA, the world’s governing body, monitors national federations’ cap counts for record-keeping purposes. FIFA will confirm from official match reports that a player did indeed play, and that the game was a full international — i.e. between two national teams rather than between a nation and a club or between Olympic teams, which aren’t considered full internationals. Last year, the U.S. Soccer Federation had to alter its records when FIFA pointed out that several American players were wrongly credited with caps from Pan American, Olympic and “B” international games. A cap, as we explained last week in a “Ask an SA” Editor question, is a term used to denote a national team appearance. It comes from the English tradition of literally awarding a player a cap when he plays for his country. If a player plays for any period of time — even just one minute — he is credited with an appearance, or cap. There have been cases where a retiring player was subbed into a game so that he could earn a milestone cap. (If you have a question for a Soccer America Magazine editor, click “Q&A with SA Editors” in the left column of the home page under “Interactive.”)