The Offside Rule

[.Williamson. 83,944]

Yano your right we should just get rid of hand ball aswell.

[TexasGers 96]

Anyhoo, to bring a bit of sense to this thread (Seriously, wtf):

[Skol 401]

RudeBoy, by luck there is a very informative article on the subject on the Guardian website. It is quite long so take a Ritalin and have a sit down for a while to read it. Your keyboard must be in ruins by now anyway.

Having read it in its entirety my opinion is unchanged - the offside rule is good for football. Scrapping it would be detrimental.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/apr/13/the-question-why-is-offside-law-genius

Nothing in football is so traduced as the offside law. Most seem to regard it as a piece of killjoy legislation, designed almost to prevent football producing too many goals and being too much fun, while for the punditocracy it has become the universal scapegoat, the thing that "nobody understands". Just because Garth Crooks doesn't get something, though, doesn't make it a bad thing. The modern offside law may be the best thing that's ever happened to football, and it is almost certainly the reason Barcelona have been so successful with a fleet of players whose obvious asset is their technique rather than their physique.

A brief history of offside

The first laws of the game drawn up by the Football Association in 1863 stipulated that a player was offside if he was in front of the ball: "When a player has kicked the ball, anyone of the same side who is nearer to the opponent's goal-line is out of play, and may not touch the ball himself, nor in any way whatever prevent any other player from doing so, until he is in play…" That effectively militated against passing and the assumptions that underlay that culture continued to shape English football for the following decade. English football in those days was all about head-down charging, which is why England were so startled when they encountered the passing approach of Scotland, who had had no such law, in the first international in 1872.

In 1866, the law was liberalised so that a player was considered to be onside if there were three defensive players between him and the goal (or was behind the ball, which has remained a constant); this was the variant to which Queen's Park committed when they joined the FA four years later. In 1873 that law was modified so that offside was judged when the ball was played, rather than when the player received the ball.

Since then, the process has been of increasing liberalisation. In 1903, the notion of interfering with play was introduced: "It is not a breach of Law for a player simply to be in an off-side position, but only when in that position, he causes the play to be affected." Four years later it was decided a player could only be offside in the opposition's half, and in 1921 that it was impossible to be offside from a throw-in.

Teams, though, had become adept at applying the offside trap. Notts County had begun the trend, but by the mid-20s several clubs, most notably Newcastle United with their full-back pairing of Frank Hudspeth and Bill McCracken, had become so obsessed with offside that games would be compressed into a narrow sliver either side of the halfway line.

When Newcastle drew 0-0 at Bury in February 1925, it came as the final straw. It was Newcastle's sixth goalless draw of a season that produced what at the time was an unthinkably low average of 2.58 goals per game. The football was boring, attendances were falling and the FA, for once, not only recognised that something needed to be done, but set about doing it.

The 1925 change

The FA came up with two possible solutions: either to require only two defending players to be in advance of the forward for him to be onside, or to add a line in each half 40 yards from goal behind which a forward could not be offside. After an exhibition match in which one alternative was trialled in each half, the FA plumped for the former. It was recommended to the International Board, and introduced ahead of the 1925-26 season.

Goals shot up to 3.69 per game in that season, but the ultimate impact was to usher in a radical change in tactics. Previously a side looking to play the offside trap had been able to retain one full-back as cover as his partner stepped up to try to catch the forward; the new legislation meant that a misjudgment risked leaving the forward through one-on-one with the goalkeeper.

What teams did instead was to withdraw the centre-half in the 2-3-5 to man-mark the centre-forward (which is why central defenders in Britain are still referred to as centre-halves). Some, such as the great Austrian journalist Willy Meisl, insisted this was the death of football, and to the extent that it was the end of a particular style of football, he was right. Moving the centre-half led to the 2-3-5 being dismantled as Herbert Chapman developed the W-M formation at Arsenal, from which sprang almost all tactical developments since.

Although the rule change was initially effective, the offside trap had returned by the mid-60s, as the advent of zonal marking and improvements in nutrition and physical training led to the development of pressing. When the likes of Viktor Maslov's Dynamo Kiev or Rinus Michels's Ajax pressed, manipulating the effective playing area to suit their ends, it could produce thrilling football. Once less technically skilled teams did it, particularly when two were ranged against each other, it could lead to the game, once again, being compressed into a narrow band straddling halfway.

Italia 90

It was the sterility of Italia 90, as with so many rule changes, that provided the impetus. First a player level with the second-last defender was deemed to be onside, whereas previously he had had to be behind. Then in 1995 came a subtle change to the wording of the law so that a player was deemed to be active if he was "gaining an advantage by being in that position" rather than, as previously, if he was "seeking to gain an advantage".

But it was in 2005 that the most radical changes came, and the switch to a law that, 142 years after it was first formulated, at last seems to have got it right. First, it was clarified that a player is offside only if a part of his body with which he is legally able to play the ball is beyond the penultimate defender. That, realistically, is academic, for no linesman can make a snap judgment as to whether, say, it is upper arm or torso he can see protruding beyond the defender, but what the change did was to shift the benefit of any doubt yet further in favour of the forward.

More significant, though was the rewording of what it means to be interfering: "Interfering with play means playing or touching the ball passed or touched by a team-mate." A later amendment clarified that: "A player in an offside position may be penalised before playing or touching the ball if, in the opinion of the referee, no other team-mate in an onside position has the opportunity to play the ball.

"If an opponent becomes involved in the play and if, in the opinion of the referee, there is potential for physical contact, the player in the offside position shall be penalised for interfering with an opponent."

The impact of the 2005 change

So to be offside, a player has either to touch the ball or be in a position potentially to make physical contact with an opponent.

Crucially, if a defender steps up because he senses by so doing he would force a forward into an offside position, that is no longer sufficient to render him active. Which means that against savvy opponents, who contrive to keep the ball away from those who have wandered offside, the offside trap has been rendered ineffective.

The figures bear this out. Opta stats show that in 1997-98 there were 7.8 offsides per game in the Premier League, after which there was a fairly steady decline to 6.3 in 2005-06. Since the new legislation came into force, there has been a further decline, to 4.8 so far this season.

There are still pundits – and managers and players and fans – who ask what a defender is supposed to do in situations in which he would previously have stepped out and tried to play offside, or if a player is behind him in the box when a ball is played in. He is, of course, actually supposed to challenge for the ball. Why should defenders be allowed simply to step up? Just because they've done that for 80 years doesn't make it a God-given right.

Although the FA's variant of offside when adopted in 1863 was predicated on a dribbling game, the variants further north – in Nottingham, Derby, Sheffield and Scotland, for instance – where a passing game prevailed, were designed to stop goal-hanging, and prevent the game becoming about endless hoofs into the danger area where a goalkeeper would battle with a handful of forwards who could legitimately stand straight in front of him.

The modern law stops that, but brilliantly it does it without the side-effect of legitimising the offside trap. And that must, even at its most basic level, be a good thing. Surely nobody, not even George Graham, goes to a game thinking: "Hmm, I hope they play some good offsides today?" Making defenders defend, forcing them to mark or block or intercept or tackle, has to be a good thing.

If sides aren't pushing up to play offside, the effective playing area is also larger. A few years ago, there were semi-serious suggestions that the pitch should be made bigger to accommodate players who are physically far larger now than they were in the Victorian era when pitch dimensions were standardised. Smaller players, ran the argument, weren't getting a chance beside physical colossi who were often less skilful, but were better equipped for the attritional conflict football had become.

Stop sides playing the offside trap and they defend deeper, that central band, the effective playing area, expands (hence the widespread shift from three-band formations to four-band formations), and the result is that the size of players matters less and skill is one again prospering. Barcelona's victory in the Champions League and Spain's success in Euro 2008 were both brought about by the sort of small, skilful midfielder who was supposed to have died out two or three decades ago.

The modern offside law remains unappreciated, but it has generated a climate in which some of the most beautiful football ever played has been produced.

As I said, it's long!

[Jordo 33]

Anyhoo, to bring a bit of sense to this thread (Seriously, wtf):

[RudeBoy 0]

RudeBoy, by luck there is a very informative article on the subject on the Guardian website. It is quite long so take a Ritalin and have a sit down for a while to read it. Your keyboard must be in ruins by now anyway.

Having read it in its entirety my opinion is unchanged - the offside rule is good for football. Scrapping it would be detrimental.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/apr/13/the-question-why-is-offside-law-genius

Nothing in football is so traduced as the offside law. Most seem to regard it as a piece of killjoy legislation, designed almost to prevent football producing too many goals and being too much fun, while for the punditocracy it has become the universal scapegoat, the thing that "nobody understands". Just because Garth Crooks doesn't get something, though, doesn't make it a bad thing. The modern offside law may be the best thing that's ever happened to football, and it is almost certainly the reason Barcelona have been so successful with a fleet of players whose obvious asset is their technique rather than their physique.

A brief history of offside

The first laws of the game drawn up by the Football Association in 1863 stipulated that a player was offside if he was in front of the ball: "When a player has kicked the ball, anyone of the same side who is nearer to the opponent's goal-line is out of play, and may not touch the ball himself, nor in any way whatever prevent any other player from doing so, until he is in play…" That effectively militated against passing and the assumptions that underlay that culture continued to shape English football for the following decade. English football in those days was all about head-down charging, which is why England were so startled when they encountered the passing approach of Scotland, who had had no such law, in the first international in 1872.

In 1866, the law was liberalised so that a player was considered to be onside if there were three defensive players between him and the goal (or was behind the ball, which has remained a constant); this was the variant to which Queen's Park committed when they joined the FA four years later. In 1873 that law was modified so that offside was judged when the ball was played, rather than when the player received the ball.

Since then, the process has been of increasing liberalisation. In 1903, the notion of interfering with play was introduced: "It is not a breach of Law for a player simply to be in an off-side position, but only when in that position, he causes the play to be affected." Four years later it was decided a player could only be offside in the opposition's half, and in 1921 that it was impossible to be offside from a throw-in.

Teams, though, had become adept at applying the offside trap. Notts County had begun the trend, but by the mid-20s several clubs, most notably Newcastle United with their full-back pairing of Frank Hudspeth and Bill McCracken, had become so obsessed with offside that games would be compressed into a narrow sliver either side of the halfway line.

When Newcastle drew 0-0 at Bury in February 1925, it came as the final straw. It was Newcastle's sixth goalless draw of a season that produced what at the time was an unthinkably low average of 2.58 goals per game. The football was boring, attendances were falling and the FA, for once, not only recognised that something needed to be done, but set about doing it.

The 1925 change

The FA came up with two possible solutions: either to require only two defending players to be in advance of the forward for him to be onside, or to add a line in each half 40 yards from goal behind which a forward could not be offside. After an exhibition match in which one alternative was trialled in each half, the FA plumped for the former. It was recommended to the International Board, and introduced ahead of the 1925-26 season.

Goals shot up to 3.69 per game in that season, but the ultimate impact was to usher in a radical change in tactics. Previously a side looking to play the offside trap had been able to retain one full-back as cover as his partner stepped up to try to catch the forward; the new legislation meant that a misjudgment risked leaving the forward through one-on-one with the goalkeeper.

What teams did instead was to withdraw the centre-half in the 2-3-5 to man-mark the centre-forward (which is why central defenders in Britain are still referred to as centre-halves). Some, such as the great Austrian journalist Willy Meisl, insisted this was the death of football, and to the extent that it was the end of a particular style of football, he was right. Moving the centre-half led to the 2-3-5 being dismantled as Herbert Chapman developed the W-M formation at Arsenal, from which sprang almost all tactical developments since.

Although the rule change was initially effective, the offside trap had returned by the mid-60s, as the advent of zonal marking and improvements in nutrition and physical training led to the development of pressing. When the likes of Viktor Maslov's Dynamo Kiev or Rinus Michels's Ajax pressed, manipulating the effective playing area to suit their ends, it could produce thrilling football. Once less technically skilled teams did it, particularly when two were ranged against each other, it could lead to the game, once again, being compressed into a narrow band straddling halfway.

Italia 90

It was the sterility of Italia 90, as with so many rule changes, that provided the impetus. First a player level with the second-last defender was deemed to be onside, whereas previously he had had to be behind. Then in 1995 came a subtle change to the wording of the law so that a player was deemed to be active if he was "gaining an advantage by being in that position" rather than, as previously, if he was "seeking to gain an advantage".

But it was in 2005 that the most radical changes came, and the switch to a law that, 142 years after it was first formulated, at last seems to have got it right. First, it was clarified that a player is offside only if a part of his body with which he is legally able to play the ball is beyond the penultimate defender. That, realistically, is academic, for no linesman can make a snap judgment as to whether, say, it is upper arm or torso he can see protruding beyond the defender, but what the change did was to shift the benefit of any doubt yet further in favour of the forward.

More significant, though was the rewording of what it means to be interfering: "Interfering with play means playing or touching the ball passed or touched by a team-mate." A later amendment clarified that: "A player in an offside position may be penalised before playing or touching the ball if, in the opinion of the referee, no other team-mate in an onside position has the opportunity to play the ball.

"If an opponent becomes involved in the play and if, in the opinion of the referee, there is potential for physical contact, the player in the offside position shall be penalised for interfering with an opponent."

The impact of the 2005 change

So to be offside, a player has either to touch the ball or be in a position potentially to make physical contact with an opponent.

Crucially, if a defender steps up because he senses by so doing he would force a forward into an offside position, that is no longer sufficient to render him active. Which means that against savvy opponents, who contrive to keep the ball away from those who have wandered offside, the offside trap has been rendered ineffective.

The figures bear this out. Opta stats show that in 1997-98 there were 7.8 offsides per game in the Premier League, after which there was a fairly steady decline to 6.3 in 2005-06. Since the new legislation came into force, there has been a further decline, to 4.8 so far this season.

There are still pundits – and managers and players and fans – who ask what a defender is supposed to do in situations in which he would previously have stepped out and tried to play offside, or if a player is behind him in the box when a ball is played in. He is, of course, actually supposed to challenge for the ball. Why should defenders be allowed simply to step up? Just because they've done that for 80 years doesn't make it a God-given right.

Although the FA's variant of offside when adopted in 1863 was predicated on a dribbling game, the variants further north – in Nottingham, Derby, Sheffield and Scotland, for instance – where a passing game prevailed, were designed to stop goal-hanging, and prevent the game becoming about endless hoofs into the danger area where a goalkeeper would battle with a handful of forwards who could legitimately stand straight in front of him.

The modern law stops that, but brilliantly it does it without the side-effect of legitimising the offside trap. And that must, even at its most basic level, be a good thing. Surely nobody, not even George Graham, goes to a game thinking: "Hmm, I hope they play some good offsides today?" Making defenders defend, forcing them to mark or block or intercept or tackle, has to be a good thing.

If sides aren't pushing up to play offside, the effective playing area is also larger. A few years ago, there were semi-serious suggestions that the pitch should be made bigger to accommodate players who are physically far larger now than they were in the Victorian era when pitch dimensions were standardised. Smaller players, ran the argument, weren't getting a chance beside physical colossi who were often less skilful, but were better equipped for the attritional conflict football had become.

Stop sides playing the offside trap and they defend deeper, that central band, the effective playing area, expands (hence the widespread shift from three-band formations to four-band formations), and the result is that the size of players matters less and skill is one again prospering. Barcelona's victory in the Champions League and Spain's success in Euro 2008 were both brought about by the sort of small, skilful midfielder who was supposed to have died out two or three decades ago.

The modern offside law remains unappreciated, but it has generated a climate in which some of the most beautiful football ever played has been produced.

As I said, it's long!

All that is is the speculative opinion of a Guardian journalist. From what I can make out, it places much stock in how the game evolved and therefore needed offside to address the changing times. An equally solid argument would say that the game has evolved even more nowadays and in more ways. An abolition of offside could generate change in order to keep it fresher. It's all speculative.

I admire your selective application of media integrity. Presumably you agree with The Guardian when they are printing shite about Rangers' apparent 'signing policy' and condemning them over Manchester?

[RFC55 110,262]

RudeBoy, by luck there is a very informative article on the subject on the Guardian website. It is quite long so take a Ritalin and have a sit down for a while to read it. Your keyboard must be in ruins by now anyway.

Having read it in its entirety my opinion is unchanged - the offside rule is good for football. Scrapping it would be detrimental.

http://www.guardian....side-law-genius

Nothing in football is so traduced as the offside law. Most seem to regard it as a piece of killjoy legislation, designed almost to prevent football producing too many goals and being too much fun, while for the punditocracy it has become the universal scapegoat, the thing that "nobody understands". Just because Garth Crooks doesn't get something, though, doesn't make it a bad thing. The modern offside law may be the best thing that's ever happened to football, and it is almost certainly the reason Barcelona have been so successful with a fleet of players whose obvious asset is their technique rather than their physique.

A brief history of offside

The first laws of the game drawn up by the Football Association in 1863 stipulated that a player was offside if he was in front of the ball: "When a player has kicked the ball, anyone of the same side who is nearer to the opponent's goal-line is out of play, and may not touch the ball himself, nor in any way whatever prevent any other player from doing so, until he is in play…" That effectively militated against passing and the assumptions that underlay that culture continued to shape English football for the following decade. English football in those days was all about head-down charging, which is why England were so startled when they encountered the passing approach of Scotland, who had had no such law, in the first international in 1872.

In 1866, the law was liberalised so that a player was considered to be onside if there were three defensive players between him and the goal (or was behind the ball, which has remained a constant); this was the variant to which Queen's Park committed when they joined the FA four years later. In 1873 that law was modified so that offside was judged when the ball was played, rather than when the player received the ball.

Since then, the process has been of increasing liberalisation. In 1903, the notion of interfering with play was introduced: "It is not a breach of Law for a player simply to be in an off-side position, but only when in that position, he causes the play to be affected." Four years later it was decided a player could only be offside in the opposition's half, and in 1921 that it was impossible to be offside from a throw-in.

Teams, though, had become adept at applying the offside trap. Notts County had begun the trend, but by the mid-20s several clubs, most notably Newcastle United with their full-back pairing of Frank Hudspeth and Bill McCracken, had become so obsessed with offside that games would be compressed into a narrow sliver either side of the halfway line.

When Newcastle drew 0-0 at Bury in February 1925, it came as the final straw. It was Newcastle's sixth goalless draw of a season that produced what at the time was an unthinkably low average of 2.58 goals per game. The football was boring, attendances were falling and the FA, for once, not only recognised that something needed to be done, but set about doing it.

The 1925 change

The FA came up with two possible solutions: either to require only two defending players to be in advance of the forward for him to be onside, or to add a line in each half 40 yards from goal behind which a forward could not be offside. After an exhibition match in which one alternative was trialled in each half, the FA plumped for the former. It was recommended to the International Board, and introduced ahead of the 1925-26 season.

Goals shot up to 3.69 per game in that season, but the ultimate impact was to usher in a radical change in tactics. Previously a side looking to play the offside trap had been able to retain one full-back as cover as his partner stepped up to try to catch the forward; the new legislation meant that a misjudgment risked leaving the forward through one-on-one with the goalkeeper.

What teams did instead was to withdraw the centre-half in the 2-3-5 to man-mark the centre-forward (which is why central defenders in Britain are still referred to as centre-halves). Some, such as the great Austrian journalist Willy Meisl, insisted this was the death of football, and to the extent that it was the end of a particular style of football, he was right. Moving the centre-half led to the 2-3-5 being dismantled as Herbert Chapman developed the W-M formation at Arsenal, from which sprang almost all tactical developments since.

Although the rule change was initially effective, the offside trap had returned by the mid-60s, as the advent of zonal marking and improvements in nutrition and physical training led to the development of pressing. When the likes of Viktor Maslov's Dynamo Kiev or Rinus Michels's Ajax pressed, manipulating the effective playing area to suit their ends, it could produce thrilling football. Once less technically skilled teams did it, particularly when two were ranged against each other, it could lead to the game, once again, being compressed into a narrow band straddling halfway.

Italia 90

It was the sterility of Italia 90, as with so many rule changes, that provided the impetus. First a player level with the second-last defender was deemed to be onside, whereas previously he had had to be behind. Then in 1995 came a subtle change to the wording of the law so that a player was deemed to be active if he was "gaining an advantage by being in that position" rather than, as previously, if he was "seeking to gain an advantage".

But it was in 2005 that the most radical changes came, and the switch to a law that, 142 years after it was first formulated, at last seems to have got it right. First, it was clarified that a player is offside only if a part of his body with which he is legally able to play the ball is beyond the penultimate defender. That, realistically, is academic, for no linesman can make a snap judgment as to whether, say, it is upper arm or torso he can see protruding beyond the defender, but what the change did was to shift the benefit of any doubt yet further in favour of the forward.

More significant, though was the rewording of what it means to be interfering: "Interfering with play means playing or touching the ball passed or touched by a team-mate." A later amendment clarified that: "A player in an offside position may be penalised before playing or touching the ball if, in the opinion of the referee, no other team-mate in an onside position has the opportunity to play the ball.

"If an opponent becomes involved in the play and if, in the opinion of the referee, there is potential for physical contact, the player in the offside position shall be penalised for interfering with an opponent."

The impact of the 2005 change

So to be offside, a player has either to touch the ball or be in a position potentially to make physical contact with an opponent.

Crucially, if a defender steps up because he senses by so doing he would force a forward into an offside position, that is no longer sufficient to render him active. Which means that against savvy opponents, who contrive to keep the ball away from those who have wandered offside, the offside trap has been rendered ineffective.

The figures bear this out. Opta stats show that in 1997-98 there were 7.8 offsides per game in the Premier League, after which there was a fairly steady decline to 6.3 in 2005-06. Since the new legislation came into force, there has been a further decline, to 4.8 so far this season.

There are still pundits – and managers and players and fans – who ask what a defender is supposed to do in situations in which he would previously have stepped out and tried to play offside, or if a player is behind him in the box when a ball is played in. He is, of course, actually supposed to challenge for the ball. Why should defenders be allowed simply to step up? Just because they've done that for 80 years doesn't make it a God-given right.

Although the FA's variant of offside when adopted in 1863 was predicated on a dribbling game, the variants further north – in Nottingham, Derby, Sheffield and Scotland, for instance – where a passing game prevailed, were designed to stop goal-hanging, and prevent the game becoming about endless hoofs into the danger area where a goalkeeper would battle with a handful of forwards who could legitimately stand straight in front of him.

The modern law stops that, but brilliantly it does it without the side-effect of legitimising the offside trap. And that must, even at its most basic level, be a good thing. Surely nobody, not even George Graham, goes to a game thinking: "Hmm, I hope they play some good offsides today?" Making defenders defend, forcing them to mark or block or intercept or tackle, has to be a good thing.

If sides aren't pushing up to play offside, the effective playing area is also larger. A few years ago, there were semi-serious suggestions that the pitch should be made bigger to accommodate players who are physically far larger now than they were in the Victorian era when pitch dimensions were standardised. Smaller players, ran the argument, weren't getting a chance beside physical colossi who were often less skilful, but were better equipped for the attritional conflict football had become.

Stop sides playing the offside trap and they defend deeper, that central band, the effective playing area, expands (hence the widespread shift from three-band formations to four-band formations), and the result is that the size of players matters less and skill is one again prospering. Barcelona's victory in the Champions League and Spain's success in Euro 2008 were both brought about by the sort of small, skilful midfielder who was supposed to have died out two or three decades ago.

The modern offside law remains unappreciated, but it has generated a climate in which some of the most beautiful football ever played has been produced.

As I said, it's long!

All that is is the speculative opinion of a Guardian journalist. From what I can make out, it places much stock in how the game evolved and therefore needed offside to address the changing times. An equally solid argument would say that the game has evolved even more nowadays and in more ways. An abolition of offside could generate change in order to keep it fresher. It's all speculative.

I admire your selective application of media integrity. Presumably you agree with The Guardian when they are printing shite about Rangers' apparent 'signing policy' and condemning them over Manchester?

Its us, not them

[David1872 21]

But my players will be trying to force the ball in the net and will have a good chance of doing so.

If I have as many defenders on the line you'll have as much chance as scoring as I will defending.

Not if you have no wall. My player could get the ball laid off to him and virtually walk towards a goaline with 11 players on it.

5 of them being his own teammates and either pass the ball to one of them or blast it towards goal and 9/10 it will go in.

And what if I had a wall? Your line of thought has too many daft permutations for it be taken seriously, but I'll persist; your player that gets the ball laid off to him is faced with one of my defenders. Now what? he passes it to another of his players who are up there? Fine, I have defender on him. Now what, he passes it to another? Fine, I have a defender sitting waiting for him also. The attacking team would see no benefit as they would be faced with man-marking in equal measures. It's lack of advantage would ensure that free-kicks in this situation would remain practically as they are just now, only with no chance of a referee chalking off a perfectly good goal.

If you had a wall plus players around your goalkeeper to counter my players then that leaves you with about 2 players to counter with.

No matter how you try to justify this rule there is always going to be a way it can be used to a teams advantage.

Of course there will always be a slight advantage during the free-kick scenario you propose. That is the whole point of a free-kick. A free-kick anywhere on the pitch, under any set of rules, is going to grant some form of advantage.

My point is, there would be no more of an advantage. It's pretty simple if you apply a little thought.

Alos, if you have to resort to the old 'I don't agree with you, you're a T*rrier, this is all because you like Robbie Keane' implications, either stop replying or grow up. Attempt to debate sensibly or join the other slabbering morons who think the apex of argumentation and debate is to imply someone is a C*ltic fan. I'm sure they'll give you a warm welcome and maybe even a big sticker to wear.

The Robbie Keane part was not serious. If you are all for no offside then thats your opinion but it seems to be only you and Blatter that want this.

There is too many way teams could use this to gain an unfair advantage and football would become a farce.

[Creampuff 22,628]

There would be no football played.

It would destroy the game.

[Skol 401]

RudeBoy, by luck there is a very informative article on the subject on the Guardian website. It is quite long so take a Ritalin and have a sit down for a while to read it. Your keyboard must be in ruins by now anyway.

Having read it in its entirety my opinion is unchanged - the offside rule is good for football. Scrapping it would be detrimental.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/apr/13/the-question-why-is-offside-law-genius

Nothing in football is so traduced as the offside law. Most seem to regard it as a piece of killjoy legislation, designed almost to prevent football producing too many goals and being too much fun, while for the punditocracy it has become the universal scapegoat, the thing that "nobody understands". Just because Garth Crooks doesn't get something, though, doesn't make it a bad thing. The modern offside law may be the best thing that's ever happened to football, and it is almost certainly the reason Barcelona have been so successful with a fleet of players whose obvious asset is their technique rather than their physique.

A brief history of offside

The first laws of the game drawn up by the Football Association in 1863 stipulated that a player was offside if he was in front of the ball: "When a player has kicked the ball, anyone of the same side who is nearer to the opponent's goal-line is out of play, and may not touch the ball himself, nor in any way whatever prevent any other player from doing so, until he is in play…" That effectively militated against passing and the assumptions that underlay that culture continued to shape English football for the following decade. English football in those days was all about head-down charging, which is why England were so startled when they encountered the passing approach of Scotland, who had had no such law, in the first international in 1872.

In 1866, the law was liberalised so that a player was considered to be onside if there were three defensive players between him and the goal (or was behind the ball, which has remained a constant); this was the variant to which Queen's Park committed when they joined the FA four years later. In 1873 that law was modified so that offside was judged when the ball was played, rather than when the player received the ball.

Since then, the process has been of increasing liberalisation. In 1903, the notion of interfering with play was introduced: "It is not a breach of Law for a player simply to be in an off-side position, but only when in that position, he causes the play to be affected." Four years later it was decided a player could only be offside in the opposition's half, and in 1921 that it was impossible to be offside from a throw-in.

Teams, though, had become adept at applying the offside trap. Notts County had begun the trend, but by the mid-20s several clubs, most notably Newcastle United with their full-back pairing of Frank Hudspeth and Bill McCracken, had become so obsessed with offside that games would be compressed into a narrow sliver either side of the halfway line.

When Newcastle drew 0-0 at Bury in February 1925, it came as the final straw. It was Newcastle's sixth goalless draw of a season that produced what at the time was an unthinkably low average of 2.58 goals per game. The football was boring, attendances were falling and the FA, for once, not only recognised that something needed to be done, but set about doing it.

The 1925 change

The FA came up with two possible solutions: either to require only two defending players to be in advance of the forward for him to be onside, or to add a line in each half 40 yards from goal behind which a forward could not be offside. After an exhibition match in which one alternative was trialled in each half, the FA plumped for the former. It was recommended to the International Board, and introduced ahead of the 1925-26 season.

Goals shot up to 3.69 per game in that season, but the ultimate impact was to usher in a radical change in tactics. Previously a side looking to play the offside trap had been able to retain one full-back as cover as his partner stepped up to try to catch the forward; the new legislation meant that a misjudgment risked leaving the forward through one-on-one with the goalkeeper.

What teams did instead was to withdraw the centre-half in the 2-3-5 to man-mark the centre-forward (which is why central defenders in Britain are still referred to as centre-halves). Some, such as the great Austrian journalist Willy Meisl, insisted this was the death of football, and to the extent that it was the end of a particular style of football, he was right. Moving the centre-half led to the 2-3-5 being dismantled as Herbert Chapman developed the W-M formation at Arsenal, from which sprang almost all tactical developments since.

Although the rule change was initially effective, the offside trap had returned by the mid-60s, as the advent of zonal marking and improvements in nutrition and physical training led to the development of pressing. When the likes of Viktor Maslov's Dynamo Kiev or Rinus Michels's Ajax pressed, manipulating the effective playing area to suit their ends, it could produce thrilling football. Once less technically skilled teams did it, particularly when two were ranged against each other, it could lead to the game, once again, being compressed into a narrow band straddling halfway.

Italia 90

It was the sterility of Italia 90, as with so many rule changes, that provided the impetus. First a player level with the second-last defender was deemed to be onside, whereas previously he had had to be behind. Then in 1995 came a subtle change to the wording of the law so that a player was deemed to be active if he was "gaining an advantage by being in that position" rather than, as previously, if he was "seeking to gain an advantage".

But it was in 2005 that the most radical changes came, and the switch to a law that, 142 years after it was first formulated, at last seems to have got it right. First, it was clarified that a player is offside only if a part of his body with which he is legally able to play the ball is beyond the penultimate defender. That, realistically, is academic, for no linesman can make a snap judgment as to whether, say, it is upper arm or torso he can see protruding beyond the defender, but what the change did was to shift the benefit of any doubt yet further in favour of the forward.

More significant, though was the rewording of what it means to be interfering: "Interfering with play means playing or touching the ball passed or touched by a team-mate." A later amendment clarified that: "A player in an offside position may be penalised before playing or touching the ball if, in the opinion of the referee, no other team-mate in an onside position has the opportunity to play the ball.

"If an opponent becomes involved in the play and if, in the opinion of the referee, there is potential for physical contact, the player in the offside position shall be penalised for interfering with an opponent."

The impact of the 2005 change

So to be offside, a player has either to touch the ball or be in a position potentially to make physical contact with an opponent.

Crucially, if a defender steps up because he senses by so doing he would force a forward into an offside position, that is no longer sufficient to render him active. Which means that against savvy opponents, who contrive to keep the ball away from those who have wandered offside, the offside trap has been rendered ineffective.

The figures bear this out. Opta stats show that in 1997-98 there were 7.8 offsides per game in the Premier League, after which there was a fairly steady decline to 6.3 in 2005-06. Since the new legislation came into force, there has been a further decline, to 4.8 so far this season.

There are still pundits – and managers and players and fans – who ask what a defender is supposed to do in situations in which he would previously have stepped out and tried to play offside, or if a player is behind him in the box when a ball is played in. He is, of course, actually supposed to challenge for the ball. Why should defenders be allowed simply to step up? Just because they've done that for 80 years doesn't make it a God-given right.

Although the FA's variant of offside when adopted in 1863 was predicated on a dribbling game, the variants further north – in Nottingham, Derby, Sheffield and Scotland, for instance – where a passing game prevailed, were designed to stop goal-hanging, and prevent the game becoming about endless hoofs into the danger area where a goalkeeper would battle with a handful of forwards who could legitimately stand straight in front of him.

The modern law stops that, but brilliantly it does it without the side-effect of legitimising the offside trap. And that must, even at its most basic level, be a good thing. Surely nobody, not even George Graham, goes to a game thinking: "Hmm, I hope they play some good offsides today?" Making defenders defend, forcing them to mark or block or intercept or tackle, has to be a good thing.

If sides aren't pushing up to play offside, the effective playing area is also larger. A few years ago, there were semi-serious suggestions that the pitch should be made bigger to accommodate players who are physically far larger now than they were in the Victorian era when pitch dimensions were standardised. Smaller players, ran the argument, weren't getting a chance beside physical colossi who were often less skilful, but were better equipped for the attritional conflict football had become.

Stop sides playing the offside trap and they defend deeper, that central band, the effective playing area, expands (hence the widespread shift from three-band formations to four-band formations), and the result is that the size of players matters less and skill is one again prospering. Barcelona's victory in the Champions League and Spain's success in Euro 2008 were both brought about by the sort of small, skilful midfielder who was supposed to have died out two or three decades ago.

The modern offside law remains unappreciated, but it has generated a climate in which some of the most beautiful football ever played has been produced.

As I said, it's long!

All that is is the speculative opinion of a Guardian journalist. From what I can make out, it places much stock in how the game evolved and therefore needed offside to address the changing times. An equally solid argument would say that the game has evolved even more nowadays and in more ways. An abolition of offside could generate change in order to keep it fresher. It's all speculative.

I admire your selective application of media integrity. Presumably you agree with The Guardian when they are printing shite about Rangers' apparent 'signing policy' and condemning them over Manchester?

Yep, once I read an article in a paper, I'm pretty much committed to agreeing with whatever else they write. They are the rules aren't they.

You have shown in other posts that you're better than that sort of crap argument. Seriously, that was a terrible second paragraph. Tell you what, we'll never speak of it again. Consider it forgotten.

Back on track, you're right, it is the speculative opinion of a journalist, as most opinion pieces are. However, you came up with the debate and said it would improve football. This guy gave a reasoned and well thought-out account of why it wouldn't. Now you say it could generate change, keeping it fresher.

I'm sorry but unless you can come up with some specifics other than "fresher" I will remain unmoved on the subject.

[Bakbear 3,586]

I am again surprised by the manner in which this thread deteriorated into a slanging match?

I think the offside rule provides an interesting dimension to football. It gives defenders and attackers alike an art to learn and develop. The ability, communication and team work required to effectively hold a defensive line to try and catch a striker offside is an important element of the game as we know it today. Equally a striker needs to learn the skill of timing his runs, midfielders need to time their passes, need to have accurate passing to thread the ball through the defensive line. All skills which in my opinion add to the intrigue of football. To remove this element of football would be a dramatic change from the game as it exists in terms of the skills employed.

It very well may lead to more goals, but I enjoy our low scoring game. I find it more alluring than the end-to-end high scoring of say a basketball game. The nuances of football as we know it today mean that it is very plausible to have a thrilling action packed game with delightful skill displayed yet still witness a 0-0 score line.

The idea of abolishing offside is not ludicrous however. The article in the guardian indeed suggests that, through a series of rule changes relaxing the offside rule, the game has become faster and more skilful. The logical evolution would be it continues to relax until it is abolished. It may be that this would, as has been argued in the Guardian article, continue speeding up the game and make it faster and more exciting.

Rudeboy has an opinion that to get rid of the offside rule is the natural progression of a game the he feels needs to eliminate the needless controversy and to speed up and encourage more goal mouth activity and ultimately more goals. Thats fine, he is entitled to that opinion and should be engaged.

My opinion is that I enjoy the controversy, I love the highs and lows of the game, I love the fascinating battle between strikers and defenders and I love that teams have to work hard to breakdown organized defences.

Perhaps in time through more incremental changes the offside rule will wither away, but for now I love the game of football and I would resist any wholesale and fundamental changes to the laws of the game

[RudeBoy 0]

Yep, once I read an article in a paper, I'm pretty much committed to agreeing with whatever else they write. They are the rules aren't they.

You have shown in other posts that you're better than that sort of crap argument. Seriously, that was a terrible second paragraph. Tell you what, we'll never speak of it again. Consider it forgotten.

Back on track, you're right, it is the speculative opinion of a journalist, as most opinion pieces are. However, you came up with the debate and said it would improve football. This guy gave a reasoned and well thought-out account of why it wouldn't. Now you say it could generate change, keeping it fresher.

I'm sorry but unless you can come up with some specifics other than "fresher" I will remain unmoved on the subject.

Are they the rules? You tell me. I'm not the one supporting my position using the argument of someone else.

Don't feel perturbed by it, I'm certainly not. I'll ask you again, do you believe all that you read in The Guardian or just that which supports your argument. You will find someone who argues that any piece selected at random is reasoned and well-thought out. You choose to do so with this one. I see flaws in it. We disagree. Move on.

I have already detailed a good few reasons countless times in this debate. Feel free to dig them out and we can debate them further.

[RudeBoy 0]

I am again surprised by the manner in which this thread deteriorated into a slanging match?

I think the offside rule provides an interesting dimension to football. It gives defenders and attackers alike an art to learn and develop. The ability, communication and team work required to effectively hold a defensive line to try and catch a striker offside is an important element of the game as we know it today. Equally a striker needs to learn the skill of timing his runs, midfielders need to time their passes, need to have accurate passing to thread the ball through the defensive line. All skills which in my opinion add to the intrigue of football. To remove this element of football would be a dramatic change from the game as it exists in terms of the skills employed.

It very well may lead to more goals, but I enjoy our low scoring game. I find it more alluring than the end-to-end high scoring of say a basketball game. The nuances of football as we know it today mean that it is very plausible to have a thrilling action packed game with delightful skill displayed yet still witness a 0-0 score line.

The idea of abolishing offside is not ludicrous however. The article in the guardian indeed suggests that, through a series of rule changes relaxing the offside rule, the game has become faster and more skilful. The logical evolution would be it continues to relax until it is abolished. It may be that this would, as has been argued in the Guardian article, continue speeding up the game and make it faster and more exciting.

Rudeboy has an opinion that to get rid of the offside rule is the natural progression of a game the he feels needs to eliminate the needless controversy and to speed up and encourage more goal mouth activity and ultimately more goals. Thats fine, he is entitled to that opinion and should be engaged.

My opinion is that I enjoy the controversy, I love the highs and lows of the game, I love the fascinating battle between strikers and defenders and I love that teams have to work hard to breakdown organized defences.

Perhaps in time through more incremental changes the offside rule will wither away, but for now I love the game of football and I would resist any wholesale and fundamental changes to the laws of the game

Succinctly put and well-argued.

Again, if you want to see where these debates generally come asunder, just follow the trail of those too quick to label people 't*rriers' for disagreeing with the almighty zietgeist.

Apparently I appear under suspicion for using the word 'them' when apparently I should have been using the royal 'us'. It's like being in the fucking Girl Guides in here sometimes!*

*That was in no way designed to impart or ascribe a religious leaning upon myself by affiliation to the Girl Guides if they are indeed 'Kaflik'.

[rangers4eva 12]

It would turn into an american style sport with the team not in possession running back to their box and defending it untill they get possession and switching roles with the other team defending their box. Would be hellish to watch.

[RudeBoy 0]

It would turn into an american style sport with the team not in possession running back to their box and defending it untill they get possession and switching roles with the other team defending their box. Would be hellish to watch.

Would it? How do you know this?

In fact, to be honest, that sounds pretty fucking exciting! Non-stop action!

[Jonnyboyrfc 296]

There would be no football played.

It would destroy the game.

This

[Jonnyboyrfc 296]

here RudeBhoy, just give up already. Can't you see it is a pish idea?

[Skol 401]

Yep, once I read an article in a paper, I'm pretty much committed to agreeing with whatever else they write. They are the rules aren't they.

You have shown in other posts that you're better than that sort of crap argument. Seriously, that was a terrible second paragraph. Tell you what, we'll never speak of it again. Consider it forgotten.

Back on track, you're right, it is the speculative opinion of a journalist, as most opinion pieces are. However, you came up with the debate and said it would improve football. This guy gave a reasoned and well thought-out account of why it wouldn't. Now you say it could generate change, keeping it fresher.

I'm sorry but unless you can come up with some specifics other than "fresher" I will remain unmoved on the subject.

Are they the rules? You tell me. I'm not the one supporting my position using the argument of someone else.

Don't feel perturbed by it, I'm certainly not. I'll ask you again, do you believe all that you read in The Guardian or just that which supports your argument. You will find someone who argues that any piece selected at random is reasoned and well-thought out. You choose to do so with this one. I see flaws in it. We disagree. Move on.

I have already detailed a good few reasons countless times in this debate. Feel free to dig them out and we can debate them further.

You're seriously asking me again? Fine...

Do I believe all that I read in the Guardian? No, of course not. I wouldn't commit myself to saying that I believe all that I read from any media outlet.

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to "believe" from this article anyway. It was an opinion piece. I agree with it if that's what you meant to say.

I don't think that removing the offside rule would have any benefit to the spectacle on display. I think it would marginalise the role of the midfielders and encourage constant high balls into the box.

Ultimately we cannot know unless it is trialled but I don't see any need for the change.

[Skol 401]

here RudeBhoy, just give up already. Can't you see it is a pish idea?

/thread

[rangers4eva 12]

It would turn into an american style sport with the team not in possession running back to their box and defending it untill they get possession and switching roles with the other team defending their box. Would be hellish to watch.

Would it? How do you know this?

In fact, to be honest, that sounds pretty fucking exciting! Non-stop action!

Yes it would, I just know.

If you find that exciting just watch basketball and leave the football to the men.

[RudeBoy 0]

Ultimately we cannot know unless it is trialled but I don't see any need for the change.

You could have written this some time ago and saved yourself some hassle.

I accept your opinion, I just don't agree with it.

[RudeBoy 0]

It would turn into an american style sport with the team not in possession running back to their box and defending it untill they get possession and switching roles with the other team defending their box. Would be hellish to watch.

Would it? How do you know this?

In fact, to be honest, that sounds pretty fucking exciting! Non-stop action!

Yes it would, I just know.

Prove it.

[RudeBoy 0]

It would turn into an american style sport with the team not in possession running back to their box and defending it untill they get possession and switching roles with the other team defending their box. Would be hellish to watch.

Would it? How do you know this?

In fact, to be honest, that sounds pretty fucking exciting! Non-stop action!

Yes it would, I just know.

If you find that exciting just watch basketball and leave the football to the men.

Basketball has a kind of offside rule also.

Best leave the debating to the men, there's a good lad.

[Jonnyboyrfc 296]

what is so wrong with the game in the first place big rudey?

[Jordo 33]

It would turn into an american style sport with the team not in possession running back to their box and defending it untill they get possession and switching roles with the other team defending their box. Would be hellish to watch.

Would it? How do you know this?

In fact, to be honest, that sounds pretty fucking exciting! Non-stop action!

Yes it would, I just know.

If you find that exciting just watch basketball and leave the football to the men.

Basketball has a kind of offside rule also.

Best leave the debating to the men, there's a good lad.

there is no offside rule in basketball, there is not even a "kind of" offside. the only rule i can even think you mean is when you go into the opposition half with the ball you cannot go back into your own half. that is nothing like offside.

[JamieD 19,311]

A noble and ingenius rule which should never be revoked.