Offside (association football)
Though restricted, well-timed passes and fast running allow an attacker to move into such a situation after the ball is kicked forward without committing the offence.
[6]: 191 However, as with all officiating decisions in the game, adjudicating offside is ultimately up to the referee, who can overrule the advice of their assistants if they see fit.
[8] The new wording sought to define the three cases more precisely, but a number of football associations and confederations continued to request more information about what movements a player in an offside position could make without interfering with an opponent.
In response to these requests, IFAB circular 3 was issued in 2015 to provide additional guidance on the criteria for interfering with an opponent.
This additional guidance is now included in the main body of the law, and forms the last three conditions under the heading "Interfering with an opponent" as shown above.
Trying to judge if a player is level with an opponent at the moment the ball is kicked is not easy: if an attacker and a defender are running in opposite directions, they can be two metres (6') apart in less than a second.
[12] It has been argued that human beings and technological media are incapable of accurately detecting an offside position quickly enough to make a timely decision.
[16] Curry and Dunning suggest that offside play was considered "highly ungentlemanly" at some schools; this attitude may have been reflected in the use of terminology such as "sneaking" at Eton and "loiter[ing]" at Cambridge.
[17][18][19] In general, offside rules intend to prevent players from "goal-hanging"–staying near the opponent's goal and waiting for the ball to be passed to them directly.
A law similar to offside was used in the game of hurling to goals played in Cornwall in the early 17th century:[21][22][H]ee who hath the ball [...] must deale no Fore-ball, viz.
Offside laws are found in the largely uncodified and informal football games played at English public schools in the early 19th century.
[26] (This is similar to the current offside law in rugby, under which any player between the ball and the opponent's goal who takes part in play, is liable to be penalised.
A resident master at Uppingham School from 1859 to 1864, Thring criticised most existing offside laws for being too lax.
[45] Thring expressed his views through correspondence in the sporting newspapers such as The Field, and through the publication in 1862 of The Simplest Game, a proposed set of laws of football.
[48] That meeting was, however, disrupted by a dispute over the subject of "hacking" (allowing players to carry the ball, provided they could be kicked in the shins by opponents when doing so, in the manner of Rugby School).
A number of representatives who supported rugby-style football did not attend this additional meeting,[50] resulting in hacking and carrying being banned.
[56] Charles Alcock, writing in 1890, suggested that it was made in order to induce two public schools, Westminster and Charterhouse, to join the association.
This happened rarely, but was possible when one team pressed high up the field, for example in a Sunderland v Wolverhampton Wanderers match in December 1901.
[96] On 30 March 1925, the FA arranged a trial match at Highbury where two proposed changes to the offside rules were tested.
It led to an immediate change in the style of play, with the game becoming more stretched, "short passing giv[ing] way to longer balls", and the development of the W-M formation.
[26] In 1990, IFAB declared that an attacker level with the second-last defender is onside, whereas previously such a player had been considered offside.
[106] FIFA President Sir Stanley Rous attended the 1973 Scottish League Cup Final, which was played using these rules.
Since the first FA laws of 1863, a player has not been penalised for being in an offside position at the moment a teammate takes a goal kick.
[115][116] This rule-change was praised on the grounds that it would deter teams from "seeking safety or wasting time by sending [the ball] into touch", and thus reduce stoppages.
[119] At the International Football Conference of December 1882, it was agreed that a player should not be offside from a corner-kick; this change was incorporated into the Laws of the Game in 1883.
[123][124] In 1987, the Football Association (FA) obtained the permission of IFAB to test such a rule in the 1987–88 GM Vauxhall Conference.
[125][126] At the next annual meeting, the FA reported to IFAB that the experiment had, as predicted, "assisted further the non-offending team and also generated more action near goal, resulting in greater excitement for players and spectators"; it nevertheless withdrew the proposal.
The execution requires careful timing by the defence and is considered a risk, since running up field against the direction of attack may leave the goal exposed.
He introduced a more attacking–minded tactical philosophy with A.C. Milan, which was highly successful, namely an aggressive high-pressing system, which used a 4–4–2 formation, an attractive, fast, attacking, and possession-based playing style, and which also used innovative elements such as zonal marking and a high back–line line playing the offside trap, which largely deviated from previous systems in Italian football, despite still maintaining defensive solidity.
[136] In the 2021–22 Premier League season, they caught 53% more the amount of opponents offside than the next best team (144 times compared to Manchester City's 94).
