Explanation Of The Offside Rule

The Offside Rule - Soccer rules are for the most part very easy to grasp even by someone that's watching the game for the first time in his life. You foul someone, you get penalized. You hit him in the box, his team gets a penalty. The ball goes beyond the marked area, it's an throw-in. Everything is really pretty basic, except for the soccer offside rules. (Yes, it's called "Offside" NOT "Offsides.")  This one can be a bit tricky and until you get more than just a simplified explaination of it, there is usually cause for confusion. So, I'll try to explain it a bit.

The offside rule only applies to attackers and it is meant to regulate both team's positions on the field of play. Without an offside rule, an attacker could simply park themselves right in front of the goal in order to receive balls and try to score. Before the offside rule, this practice would pin down the defenders and make them unable to play anywhere else outside their own penalty box. A striker could virtually bring the pace of the game to a standstill by simply lazying off in front of the opponent's goal.

Now that you know WHY soccer has an offside rule, let's take a look to see exactly what it is and how it works.

There are two phases of the offside soccer rule: the offside position and the offside "advantage". If an attacking player is in an offside position, he will only be penalized if the ball is heading towards him AND he has an intention to play it. Otherwise, if he makes no move for the ball and in no way is able to take "advantage" because of his position, he will not be called, despite being in a clearly offside position.

An attacker is in an offside position if he is closer to the other team's goal line than the ball AND the second last opponent. Usually, this is the goalie and one of the goalie's teammates. But it doesn't have to include the goalie, just 2 defending players and the ball.

So let's say that team "Blue" is attacking and "Green" is defending. The ball is at the feet of Blue's midfielder and the Blue attacker is a few yards further to the Green team's goal line than the last Green defender. Then the Blue attacker is in an offside position, but the referee will only call an offside sanction if the Blue midfielder passes the ball to the Blue attacker while they are in the offside position.  So... really and truly, it's all about advantage and the attacking team trying to use that advantage that is penalized by giving the defending team an indirect free kick.

Now, a one of other thing about offside you need to understand... An attacker is only offside if they are ahead of the second to last defender at the time that the ball is kicked forward.  If they are even with or behind the attacker when the ball is kicked and then proceed to beat the defender to the ball, that is not offside.  That is called "fast!"  :)

The very best way to understand the offside rule is simply to watch a few soccer games.  Until your child is about 13 or 14 years old, you'll find out that there are a whole lot of soccer players who don't completely understand the offside rule.  So you don't have to feel ignorant if you don't grasp the rule, but it would probably be best to remain quiet on the sideline (if you are a parent) until you get this thing down pat!