Offside Rule Explained
This is a website designed to explain the offside rule as simply as possible for football - i do not mean American football, I mean European football or soccer as it is called in America.
I am from England and support Manchester United in the English premiership, i aim to use simple pictures and text to show readers just how simple the offside rule is to understand.
Offside
A player is judged to be offside when he is interfering with play, ahead of the last defender, this can be a little hard to understand but basically, when the ball is passed to another player if he has one player from the other team in front of him - he is offside, if he has two players from the other team in front of him, then he is onside - just remember the goalkeeper counts as a player. (see pics)
OffsideThis player (number 10) is offside because when the football is passed to him there is only one player ahead of him.
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On-sideThis player (number 9) is on-side because when the ball is played to him there is more than one player ahead of him.
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Remember...
You should also be aware of of these basic rules:
- A player can not be offside in his own half of the pitch
- if the defender ends up behind the goalkeeper, the rules stay exactly the same, the offside rule is judged by players not positions.
- The offside rule in general was a lot simpler around 10 years ago, but there also rules regarding phases of play which as a beginner you don't really need to know.