Offside Rule In Soccer - Soccer Rules

The offside rule in soccer effectively limits how far and forward opponent’s players may be when involved in play. Understanding the offside rule may take you some time but don’t worry, you will never be like me. It took me a year to figure out why everybody was shouting OFFSIDE! every time I touched the ball, hehe. I am also the record holder of Guinness Record Book for running offside most times in a match 

Offside rule in soccer illustrated.

Take a look at this picture. If your position in a match is like the blue spot on the left of the diagram then you will be standing/running in offside. As you can see you will be both in front of your opponent’s last player and the ball. One of the most running into offside players is Filippo Inzaghi that currently plays for Italian giants AC MILAN.

If you study his movements you will notice that referee sometime misses that he is standing offside which is pretty strange and you may wonder why? This is because referees like all human beings make mistakes and you should not get disappointed if the referee make the same mistake at your match because deciding if it is offside or not is sometimes impossible (at least not with human eyes).

Note also that you can’t be in an offside position if you are in level with the second to last opponent. The last two players can either be the goalie and a field player, or two field players.

If you are playing forward there will be many situations that you find yourself running in an offside trap. This kind of trap simply means that your opponents leave you behind the dotted line on picture just before the ball is played to you. But this kind of trap seem to fail often under a match but to avoid it try to be one yard behind your opponent so when the ball is played and if you are fast and defenders slow then you will have many opportunities to score goals.

In the beginning of your soccer carrier you may feel overwhelming with this offside thing rule but don’t you worry about that right know. Try to see and study soccer both live and on TV. Note what other players are doing when trying to avoid the offside trap. If you are playing defender in your team try to study how defenders are reacting and test what you have learn on the next match. Good Luck.