The game is so simple, except for the offside rule. I was watching Arsenal getting picked apart by Bayern again in today’s Champions League RO16 2nd leg. When was the last time any club ever lost to the same club 5-1 in consecutive matches? Would love to know the answer. In all fairness, Arsenal were down to 10 men and all 5 Bayern goals were after the red card to Kosielny.
The last goal of the game was a bit odd, and I thought it warranted an offside call, although not necessarily by rule (since I don’t know it, hence this thread). Arsenal back 4 were playing a high line and the ball was passed to Douglas Costa, who was running past the last defender, but onside. When the ball was passed, Arturo Vidal was in an offside position running parallel to Costa, but obviously just ahead. Costa eventually passed the ball to Vidal, who scored the 5th and final BM goal. At no point did any defender run past Vidal. Shouldn’t the fact that Vidal was in an offside position when the ball was passed prevent him from being allowed to touch the ball again, until he again established himself onside? To me, a defender should be able to ignore an offside player completely, until he is onside again. Am I wrong?
Since the ball was passed to him he must have “reestablished” himself onside.
eta The clip I watched didn’t give a good shot of him offside, but as soon as the ball is past him (and being played by someone that wasn’t offside), he’s back onside.
Vidal is only offside if he “gains an advantage” by being offside, which has a limited definition: only if you play the ball after it bounces off the goal or a defensive player. (Even if you’re in an offside position and a defender tries to clear the ball but ends up heading/kicking it straight to you, you’re legal.) Cite: slides 22-26 of this FIFA slideshow on the offside law: https://www.fifa.com/mm/document/afdeveloping/refereeing/law_11_offside_en_47383.pdf
(I haven’t seen the play, so I assume Vidal was behind the ball when Costa finally passed it to him.)
That’s correct, but you bring up another good point. If Vidal never got behind the ball again, why is that egregious enough to be called offside? I think Vidal gained an advantage by being offside when the ball was passed because the defenders and goalkeeper still had to account for him even though he was in an offside position. To me, they should be able to safely ignore him. Or else what is the purpose of offside anyway? I acknowledge that this isn’t the rule, but I am basically saying that it should be.
It more or less used to be that way, but they tweaked the rules to try to neutralize offside traps in the 1990s. Before then, instead of “gaining an advantage” in order to be offside in Vidal’s case, you only had to be “seeking to gain an advantage.” Jonathan Wilson wrote a nice article titled “Why is the modern offside law a work of genius?” a few years back; he also wrote the excellent (if dry) book Inverting the Pyramid on soccer formations and tactics, if that’s your thing.
A player is offside if two things happen simultaneously:
They are in an offside position at the moment that the ball is played by a teammate, and
They become involved in active play.
Thus, the moment that offside is measured is the play of the ball by a teammate. Vidal received the ball from his teammate; at that moment, he is offside if he is in an offside position (receiving the ball is the prime example of being involved in active play).
To be in an offside position, you must be:
a) In the opponents’ half of the field
b) Ahead of the ball
c) Closer to the goal line (any part of you other than your arms) than the next to the last defender.
As I recall the clip, it was a close question, but presumably Vidal was adjudged not to be ahead of the ball when he got it passed to him by Costa. The fact that he would have been offside on the previous pass TO Costa is irrelevant.
For some reason, I’ve always found the offsides rules in soccer to be more complicated than anything in American football other than the definition of a catch. Several people have tried to explain it to me, and it’s always been befuddling. This post explains it all. I’m assuming the “next to last defender” is there to pretty much exclude the goalkeeper from the equation?
No. “Next to the last defender” means exactly what it says. Count to two; the second defender out from the goal line sets the line for being “offside.” It can be the 'keeper and one other, or it can be two outfield players.
It’s actually an absurdly simple rule to teach; I used to have to do so when I was a Referee Administrator in Northern California for AYSO. Can you divide things in half? Yes? Then you know to only look for it in the opponents’ half. Can you identify the ball? Yes? Then it can’t happen behind the ball. Can you count to two? Yes? Then you know where you should be standing as a linesman (now called an assistant referee). Look across the field to see if there are any offensive players past that point when the ball gets played (generally forward, though not necessarily so) by the offense. Does the player you’ve identified touch the ball? Does he interfere with an opponent? If so, raise the flag.
For this exercise, I’ll assume the goalie is the last defender. I understand it doesn’t HAVE to be so, but that’s generally where you want the last line of defense, right?
Player A has the ball, dribbling towards the opponent’s goal. Player B is onside. Player 1, the opponent, is the second to last defender, and is between Player A and the goal.
GOALIE
1
o
A
[INDENT]B[/INDENT]
If A passes to B, in this situation, B is not offsides, correct?
GOALIE
1
[INDENT]o[/INDENT]
[INDENT]B[/INDENT]
A
What if A passes the ball to a point behind 1, where B then gets the ball. Is that offsides? Is determining offsides when A passes the ball, or when B receives it?
GOALIE
[INDENT]o[/INDENT]
[INDENT]B[/INDENT]
1
A
Small town Iowa didn’t have soccer past 3rd grade Rec Department level, and the ISU club team assumed I already knew the rules (I just ran around and kicked the ball…I was pretty terrible).
Neither of those is offside. You look at where the players are when the ball is played. So if B if behind 1 when A plays it into space and B ‘then’ gets the ball - B was onside - because Goalie and 1 were behind him when the ball was played. So it’s when A passes the ball.
For the OP question - the reason for that is simple. It makes the game more fun and interesting. As pointed out the rule used to be more strict and that if you were in an offside position and the ball was played to another one of your players who started just onside, your position would put the team offside. That made the game pretty dull (the 1990 World Cup was infamously low scoring). So they changed it. It’s better now.
The point of the offside rule, since that was asked, is to prevent attacking players from congregating close to the opposing goal line, incentivizing direct soccer (which is usually boring). So, I’m in favor of the least intrusive rule that can get that result.
The first two aren’t offside. The last one depends on where B was when the A started the pass. If A passed the ball and B ran past 1 to get it, not offside. If A passed the ball with B already past 1, offside.
Since this is the only current soccer thread, I hope you are able to watch the Barcelona - PSG game that was played today. I won’t spoil it, except I highly recommend you do.
Exactly, in the first scenario, neither of them would be offside no matter who has the ball because neither of them is behind 1. Doesn’t matter if the ball is passed forward or backward or sideways. They’re in front of 1, so no offside.
It should be noted that it is irrelevant where the ball goes when played in determining offside (a quirk of the rule). Thus, if you are in an offside position when it is played, and you come back to a position that would be ONside to touch the ball, you’re still offside. The ball can even go backward, and you go backward even more to get to it, and you’ll be offside. Only one point in time matters for the determination: where were you when it was last played by your teammate. As an assistant referee, you simply note the potential offside, and wait to see what happens.
The best part of this is that whoever was handling the instant replay obviously did know the rule, as they clearly used the goalkeeper as the man who determined the offside line and coloured the area behind him to indicate it was offside. Yet the commentator completely missed that.
Sadly, it is a generally true statement that soccer commentators, especially the color men, don’t know the laws of soccer well at all. Listening to them talk about decisions on offside and on handling the ball always cause me to cringe.
