Every now and then, it seems as if some referees are a bit unclear on the details as well. (It is admittedly a bit squishier than when there is a hard and fast line on some field or court.

It’s always somewhat nonplussing (grammer?) when people say they are unclear on it. If you are past the last defender, on the opposing side of the field, when the ball is kicked to you, offsides.

It’s hard to get right though, which is different. Having both ref’d and played soccer, you absolutely need lineman watching the field closely.

I was being a bit sarcastic. Obviously the refs know the rules. But it's fairly easy to get a bit wrong at the margins. I've reffed ice hockey by comparison and, while you may miss a call here and there it's pretty clear at least if you look at a slo-mo replay whether a call was right or not based on puck and skates position.

Being somewhat familiar with ice hockey cause my kid plays, and having read the description of this offsides, ice hockey is much easier because you check position of the skaters relative to the line at the same time as the puck crosses the line. My kid's league has instant offsides, so you don't have to keep track of potential offsides, but you do have to allow otherwise offsides if the defenders put the puck in.

Under IFAB law, you have to keep track of where the potentially offside player relative to other players is at the time that the ball is kicked elsewhere, which means having eyes focused in more than one place at once. Not an easy job.

Still, I was surprised when someone told me the rule was "at least two opponent players between you and the goal line" instead of only one. I had never thought of the keeper.

The player must be past the line of the ball for it to be offside too; it the ball is passed backwards or at the same line is not offside even if there are no defenders.

He started not knowing a thing about soccer, but ended up knowing at least one thing about football.

My bet would be he hasn't fully understood it. Some of his sentences are clunky and messed up his football terms.

After years of watching my kids, I am not sure the refs always know what is offside either.

Growing up I always made fun of soccer and considered it a game for uncircumcised foreigners, but I have to like it now because my kids play. The worst thing about soccer is that no one, outside the ref, really knows how much time is left in the game. That and flopping in the box to get penalty shots.

They know the rule, the problem is just that it's sometimes hard to see where the players are relative to each other the moment the ball leaves someone's foot so there are false positives and false negatives. Tech and replays make it less and less of a problem but it takes away from the game in my opinion. It's becoming too techie.

> Growing up I always made fun of soccer and considered it a game for uncircumcised foreigners

This made me actually lol

> The worst thing about soccer is that no one, outside the ref, really knows how much time is left in the game

This is also kind of a feature. Different kind of suspense. I don't mind it.

> That and flopping in the box to get penalty shots.

I don't like diving, but I can understand it to some extent. The ref misses a lot of the illegal contact.

Grabbing, pushing, pretty much anything you do with your hands to manipulate another player is illegal contact. Shoulder contact is mostly fine and the generally allowed strength and positioning play.

If you have someone doing subtle tactical fouls in the box (very common). The ref will probably miss it because it's hard to see the finer technical contact at 30-40 yards away. Then there's the safety issue. If you're a forward and you get plowed by a defender, it can be quite dangerous. There tends to be a size mismatch favoring the defender.

So exaggerating contact to make sure the ref is aware that it's occurred is a counter to potential defender gamesmanship, or worse.

I've never been able to do it, I keep my feet at even egregious fouls (really good balance) and consequently, despite probably hundreds of fouls in the box, I never get awarded penalties.

But... I still retain a bit of appreciation for the divers as I know what defenders would be like if the threat of it wasn't there.

Another common problem is the huge license keepers are granted with physical contact.

The offside rule gets far more attention than it deserves and in my opinion it's happened due to the increased popularity and quality of live televised football over the last ~30 years.

To me the best place to start is to understand what the rule is trying to accomplish. It's designed to discourage stop a player hanging out by their opponents goal the entire game in the hopes that somehow their team can somehow get the ball to them and they'll have only the goalkeeper to beat (or whatever poor defender was tasked with tracking them) - "poaching" we'd call it in 5 or 7-aside games where there is no offside rule.

How do you do that? Well you just try to make a rule that says "if you're inside your opponents half your teammates can't pass you the ball unless there's at least two players between you and the opponents goal line".

It only becomes tricky to explain or understand because:

- it is encoded within the laws of the game in a very specific way that's a little tricky to digest

- most people know some bits of it but only half-remember little details and try to explain all of that at once and confuse both themselves and the person they're explaining it to

- some people think that the ball needs to be passed in a given direction, leading to (rare) situations where they're unable to explain an offside call or to incorrectly describe it as wrong

- some try to explain it in terms of one attacking player being beyond one defender, forgetting that it's actually two players on the defending side, one of whom is usually-but-not-always the goalkeeper

- people try to include exceptions when they explain it (you can't be offside from a throw-in, for example)

- local football associations try to tweak it to be more fair or to appease fans (but inevitably make it more complex and piss off fans)

- it is often explained to or by someone who has had a couple of beers and is attempting to demonstrate it by moving pint glasses or beermats around on a pub table

- if you want to be technically correct, it's not just "is a player in an offside position" it is "is any part of an attacking player's body that is allowed to play the ball offside" (i.e. you can technically be offside of your head, legs, chest, ass are offside .. but if it's only part of your arm that's in a given position you're not offside)

- etc

Each added detail or half-remembered corner-case can make any explanation more convoluted and hard to understand.

But for 99% of situations the sentence "if you're inside your opponents half your teammates can't pass you the ball unless there's at least two players between you and the opponents goal line" will suffice.

If you want to simplify it as "... at least one defender ..." that's fine in most cases. A player on the attack who is trying to avoid being offside will just look out for the last defender, assuming the goalkeeper will be stood near their goal unless they're a maniac. A player who is attacking will play the ball assuming their teammates were onside unless they're obviously not, and will shout at them (or possibly the referee) if they are called offside.

If you want to think about it in more detail, remember what parts of the body the attacker is allowed to touch the ball with.

If you're watching a match in person, you likely won't be in a position to make call it in any more detail than that anyway.

If you're watching on TV the commentators will break an offside call down in excruciating detail for you and show you lots of stupid graphics and slow-mo replays.