The offsides penalty simply allows poor defense at the expense of team play. On defense you should stay between your man and the goal - simple as that. Offsides encourages large, slow defenders who can head balls and push people around, but that are not agile.

Second, it also devalues team play. A team should work together, passing the ball, to set up an easy goal. The offsides penalty takes it away.

If I am ever a reff I will simply explain to the opposing coaches before the game that I am not going to call offsides, so they had better play D and pass the ball.

Go Cougs!!!!!!!!

P. S. They really need to eliminate one man in soccer as well.

NC-Puma wrote:

2. Bad calls in critical moments. Bad calls at critical times (like any call inside the box) need to be able to be overturned by a quick instant replay up in the box. Like when Oguchi Onyewu gave up a PK in last world cup on a total dive against the African team (forget which one). WAY TOO much is riding on a PK call for it not to be at least briefly reviewed... and that sort of call screw-up happens all the time.

I too hate the fact that the officials can interject their bias into the game. I would love to see one instant replay official in the box that could look at the entire field and then review a call quickly. The problem is that play has already stopped so they would need to let the play continue and then overrule if necessary.

Watching the U20 play from Canada, I could not believe the inconsistency of the play calling. Every PK should need an instant replay confirmation, because they are almost automatic anymore.

Hawkeye-Coug wrote:

The offsides penalty simply allows poor defense at the expense of team play. On defense you should stay between your man and the goal - simple as that. Offsides encourages large, slow defenders who can head balls and push people around, but that are not agile.

Second, it also devalues team play. A team should work together, passing the ball, to set up an easy goal. The offsides penalty takes it away.

I would say that offsides creates good defense. If you have ever played "Stopper", as some call it, you are in charge of coordinating the defensive line. The defense has to work together as a team in order to make sure the last line of defense works efficiently and uses offsides in an effective way. Defenders still are taught to maintain position between forward and the goal. Defense actually takes more talent and attention in order to balance maintaining position between the player and the goal and using offsides as an effectively.

And offside does not encourage slow defenders. You still need to be fast as a defender because balls are played behind the defensive line into space for those in a forward position to speed past the line of defense. If defenders were slow, I would argue that you would see more goals because forwards would be running past them all the time. It is much easier to score a goal when you are 1 vs. 1 than having a crowd around the goal. Yes defenders are sometime taller and bigger, but just like positions in other sports, there is a balance. Basketball doesn't have offsides, yet the center is still slow, tall, and big.

If you don't have offsides, it actually discourages controlled passing. The game would turn into kickball because there is too much open space. The only way to counteract that is to make the field smaller...then it is a totally different game.

The reason people hate offsides is because they see players speed ahead of the defensive line before the ball is sent to them and get disappointed when offsides is called. They also see the big gap behind the defensive line and get mad that the forward can't just camp out there and wait for the ball. Without offsides there would be some cherry picking, but you would mostly see defenders just hanging back against the goal...leaving huge gaps between offense and defense. You would rarely see the defense playing so far up the field. There wouldn't be nearly as many breakaways, just a bunch of crowding around the goal. Once again, to solve this problem (without offsides), you would need a small field with less players...then you get something that resembles indoor soccer.

Double post again... <br><br>Post edited by: cougfan1, at: 2007/07/16 16:39

Mingjai wrote:

I'm a little surprised that this is coming from a soccer player, but to each his own. I play a lot of ice hockey and would never suggest eliminating the offside rule (or the icing rule) because it would drastically change the game as we know it. I was glad to see the 2 line pass rule go, but offsides is a totally different story.

One thing offsides does in soccer is it allows for great slicing runs, sharp through passes, and nice breakaways. Since &quot;fastbreaks&quot; are a little more difficult on such a big field as compared to basketball, offsides allows for fast counterattacks because the rule encourages the defenders to play high in order to trap the attacker in the offside position. Without offsides in soccer, offensive players would try to cherry pick near the goal and defensive players would be hanging around with them, which would clutter the goal area and not allow strikers to break in behind defenders. Offensive strategies in soccer as we currently know them would disappear as the offenses become a lot more like half-court offenses in basketball, which tend to be relatively boring.

Remember when the NBA moved in the 3-point line in order to increase scoring? That failed because the wing players would still bunch at the 3-point line (which was closer in by a foot or so). When the wing players passed in to the post men, the wing defender would collapse down, causing the post player to kick the ball back out to the wing player for an &quot;open&quot; 3 pointer. But because the wing player was camped out closed in, the defender who doubled down could make it back out in time to affect the 3 point shot. While everyone initially thought the shorted 3 point line would increase scoring, it actually had the opposite effect, and the line was moved back to the current location.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Post edited by: Mingjai, at: 2007/07/16 11:55

That's a good point. I wouldn't be surprised if getting rid of offsides would actually decrease scoring, mainly at the highest levels of soccer. At lower levels (weekend warrior soccer), I could see cherrypick scores happening but good soccer teams would adjust and not allow it. The end result would be a cluttered box, which would spell doom for the US. The US seems to only be able to score on counterattack.

NC-Puma wrote:

I wouldn't be surprised if getting rid of offsides would actually decrease scoring, mainly at the highest levels of soccer. At lower levels (weekend warrior soccer), I could see cherrypick scores happening but good soccer teams would adjust and not allow it. The end result would be a cluttered box, which would spell doom for the US. The US seems to only be able to score on counterattack.

As much as I like to think your comment about the US only scoring on counterattack is only referring to one player (Landon Donovan), you've pretty much summed up every goal the U.S. has scored against Mexico. Well, that or a set piece (which likely came because of a counterattack).