A_King wrote:

Personally, I thought the Football "snap the ball" analogy was a pretty good one in explaining the Offsides rule in soccer.

Think about it, the defenders are having to watch alot of action, and anyone who has watched soccer knows how fast the ball can go from one Keeper to the other end of the field, LONG BEFORE a player could physically run there unless he anticipated it and started before the kick from the keeper.

So, the offsides rule is JUST like the Football offsides before the snap rule.

You can't let offensive players hang out behind the defense who are paying attention to every pass upfield and gauging when to join the offensive position for a strike.

If you did, it would be like letting the WR go to the endzone before the ball was snapped and all the QB had to do was drop back a step or two and launch it to the WIDE OPEN receiver.

A keeper can LAUNCH the ball in nano-seconds and a forward chilling with the opposing keeper would be that WR sitting in the Endzone UNFAIRLY too early.

Kitic's example was pretty good, if you ask me. :D

On top of that, if defenders started to hang around the endzone for the long bomb, then the quarterback could throw underneath passes to a WR while all the defense is hanging back...similar to prevent defense. It would be difficult too difficult to cover.

I think that it is different in Football though because you get to stop and MAKE CLAIM to yardage gained and try another play. In soccer, you have to keep trying to make something out of one play, you can't reset and keep the ball there at your advantage offensively unless of course there is a penalty.

Hawkeye-Coug wrote:

And offside does not encourage slow defenders.

Offsides does cover for slower, less agile defenders. Or, perhaps more accurately, it covers for defenders who decide to play slow simply because an offsides will bail them out. Thus, there is an advantage in choosing defenders that are big and physical, who can head balls. Their weakness in agility is partially covered by offsides. I also think the basketball analogy is off. Soccer/futbol is much more like football. DB's in football are small and fast to be able to cover the WRs. Can you imagine football outlawing the long bomb simply because there wasn't a defender between the WR and the goal line?

There is very little in soccer that can cover for a slow defender (except another defender). Defense is about speed and smarts. A smart defender can be a little slower, but then there is always a switch that happens after that defender gets beat. Offsides can not compensate for a slow defender.

B-Rex wrote:

Hawkeye-Coug wrote:

And offside does not encourage slow defenders.

Offsides does cover for slower, less agile defenders. Or, perhaps more accurately, it covers for defenders who decide to play slow simply because an offsides will bail them out. Thus, there is an advantage in choosing defenders that are big and physical, who can head balls. Their weakness in agility is partially covered by offsides. I also think the basketball analogy is off. Soccer/futbol is much more like football. DB's in football are small and fast to be able to cover the WRs. Can you imagine football outlawing the long bomb simply because there wasn't a defender between the WR and the goal line?

There is very little in soccer that can cover for a slow defender (except another defender). Defense is about speed and smarts. A smart defender can be a little slower, but then there is always a switch that happens after that defender gets beat. Offsides can not compensate for a slow defender.

Offsides doesn't encourage slower defenders and here's why: When playing the offsides trap, the defense will basically line up straight across as far as 40 yards out from goal to force the offensive players to stay back. Not only that, to play the trap properly, the defenders must be disciplined enough not to back-pedal--they must be near stationary to hold their line. What does that do? It creates 40 yards of space between any players and the goal that the offense can exploit with a well timed through ball or lob, with the speedy recipient starting off even with the defenders. If the defenders are slow or not agile, there would be no way for them to recover and it would attacker versus goalie every time.

Imagine if the soccer offsides rule were instituted in football, so that the receiver may not be deeper than the deepest defender when the ball is thrown (to that receiver). Would that encourage teams to play shallow and have slow defensive secondaries to trap receivers in the offsides position? I doubt it because if the pass is thrown when the streaking wide receiver is just even with the DB, a slow DB isn't going to recover in time to knock the ball away. Teams trying to play "offsides trap" (imagine 4 DB's lined up straight across 15 yards from the line of scrimmage) with slow DBs would get burned long early and often.

I think the game is just to slow. I love playing soccer but can't stand watching it. Face it, it is just to long to cheer for a game that ends up 1-0.

My suggestion is shorten the field some to force more action and higher scoring games!

spidy wrote:

I think the game is just to slow. I love playing soccer but can't stand watching it. Face it, it is just to long to cheer for a game that ends up 1-0.

My suggestion is shorten the field some to force more action and higher scoring games!

In any sport, there are more things to watch than just scoring points. You could find any sport slow if you don't understand or appreciate the skills on display. I find a 1-0 soccer or hockey game more exciting or suspenseful than a 101-95 basketball game.

Just as many Americans think soccer is too slow, foreigners think fooball is too slow because teams have to reset before every single play. Heck, if football changed it's scoring so that a TD was worth 1 point and a FG worth 0.5 points, there would be quite a few 2-1 scores and maybe every once in a while you might see a 0.5-0 score.

To each his own, I guess.