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What does "tuck" mean in football(soccer)? In the sentence "tuck the second", I don't get the point.

GOAL! DERBY 0-2 SUNDERLAND (Fletcher, 36)

They've been maligned for their confidence in building from the back and Derby have just been dealt the ultimate punishment! Richard Keogh's miscued pass ends up at the feet of Ashley Fletcher and he evades the challenges of several of the Rams backline before tucking the second past Scott Carson!

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This is referring to the expression 'to tuck away' which in football means to score a goal. So 'tucking the second past Scott Carson' means he scored a goal by kicking the ball past Scott Carson. Other terms you may hear are 'put away', 'knock it past' or other such physical expressions that give the idea of putting something (the ball) past someone (the goalkeeper/defenders) or into somewhere (the goal).

Edit: As djna pointed out in the comments, using 'tuck' denotes a casual motion, an easy goal. If one were to use 'smashed it in' for example, or another more violent verb, then the impression would be that of a stronger and more powerful kick.

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    There's a suggestion that this was a calm, efficient completion of the scoring of the goal. The analogy might be to complete the making of a bed, all the work is done, just one little corner of a sheet to be tucked away to make things tidy.
    – djna
    Mar 30 '18 at 22:19
  • @djna Yes! The online Wiktionary mentions a definition for "tuck in" as: (transitive, soccer) To score from with a casual motion. (en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tuck_in)
    – m_a_s
    Mar 31 '18 at 3:45
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Transitive verb tuck ( to tuck something) means to place it neatly in a narrow or confined place. You can tuck a package on top of a row of books in a bookshelf, so that the package fits snugly between the books and the shelf above. You can tuck a bedsheet under the mattress. You can tuck your toes in the wet sand at the beach. You can tuck a letter in an envelope. In football the implication would be that the shot which scored the goal followed a narrow open path between defenders or just out of reach of a defender but still on line to the net. The player who scored the goal fit the ball precisely where it needed to go, "tucking the second [goal] past Scott Carson".

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