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I agree. It doesn't have to be made by an offensive play. Could be defensive as well. Could be a series of touches so to speak by several players on one particular play that lead to the win. I agree with what you're saying. But to win a game you have to have 1 more score than your opposition. It's that one play that makes the diffence.

Now if you have a game where offensive, defensive, goalie and every one else plays fantastic on both teams. The game though ends in a tie. Then what you have is a great game to watch and talk about. But you don't have a winner. You don't have that one play that made the difference.

Coach P,

I agree with you completely. Most fans are so intent on watching the area around where the ball actually is, that when a player makes a long pass over the defense, or a through ball to a teammate who is making a run, many times the entire back line has already moved ten yards forward by the time those fans swing their heads around to see where the ball is going.

Add to that the fact that many fans don't understand that a player can actually be in the offside position but not be penalized for it if they are not considered by the official to be gaining an advantage by being in that position.

Heck, I rarely see REFEREES who (appear to me to) take that into consideration - so, I certainly don't expect most parents to "get" it. I just wish fans would not be so vocal about rules they don't completely understand.

Soccerboy:

I'm assuming from your username that you are, in fact, a boy (teenager, no less), DID ANYONE EVER TEACH YOU RESPECT FOR YOUR ELDERS? In any case: you don't need to go on flaming people no matter what age you are.

The Book....your assumption would be wrong. I have been using the name soccerboy for quite some time now. I haven't seen my teens since the early 90's. I don't have a whole lot of respect for people that don't understand the rules of soccer but yet spout off on some subject that proves they don't understand the game. It so annoys me as an official to hear people yelling that a kid was offsides....on their defensive half of the field. Learn the rules, become better fans of soccer. That was my point. I didn't "flame" him that bad, just pointed something out. I could have been a lot meaner, but I don't have a dog in the fight per se, so I was just pointing out the fallacy in his argument.

Coach P...Don't try to make it look like I don't understand the rules, as I know that is what you are attempting to do by your above quotes of me. I am well aware of the interference clause. I was just pointing out in a previous item posted on this board that just because somebody is in an offside position, that they are not necessarily offsides themselves. The past poster did not qualify his post by saying that somebody was interfering with the keeper in his situation. I was just addressing his situation. In his situation, nobody would be offsides. The only time I have had to call somebody offsides when they did not have the ball was when they ran into the keeper as the other gentleman was taking a shot. If you want to argue semantics, I can do so.

Soccerboy,
Acually, you have just made my point. You did not give Scotland the same consideration you are asking for. You assumed that he did not know the rules because he said there were 4 players offside. He may very well have meant that there were 4 players in an offside position. You took his statement literally and jumped all over it, but you don't like your statement being taken literally.

Just to clarify, my point is simply that, in brief comments in a message board setting, the statement:

“…the goal that they did score was scored with 4 of their players 5 yards off sides and not called.”

is no more indicative of a lack of rules knowledge than is the statement:

“...as long as the ball doesn't get passed to one of them, they are not offsides.”

What would you have me do Coach P? Do you want me to get down and beg for forgiveness for making a blanket statement like that? You have proved my point by the above quote....you can't have 4 of their 5 players offsides without a ball being passed to them. It's as simple as that. If you look at scotland's origional post, it was full of the blame game with the referees rather than the possibility that it was a good play and the AR was in the correct position to make the call, and the center made the correct call by allowing play to continue. His post was full of victimization and condemnation rather than hey, our defense just made a mistake and stepped up a split second too late for the trap to work. I get so tired of hearing all the same crap when I am refereeing or even watching a game for enjoyment. The fans can be so ignorant sometimes. Then again you can have a bad referee that seems to not know the rules either. I would doubt that anybody would use a bad referee in a state cup final game. Here in IL the top referees that are at least 5's or 4's are used in those games. I would assume that that is the same for SC state cup finals matches.

You also need to understand "in the opinion of the referee". Since I am a referee in my opinion I deemed that there was no inteference in relation to this example

As for this topic...you may not agree with what I said, oh well. I don't know what you point is by continuing to attack me. I have not attacked you. Do you know this scotland character? Just let it go, I wasn't that rude, his statement was pretty out there. I am not going to comment on this any further.

Actually, if you have four players in an offsides position near the goal and interfering with the keeper's ability to react to the ball, they can be ruled offsides whether the ball is passed to them or not--and nothing that hinges on "the opinion of the referee" is ever "as simple as that." Fact is, offsides is a rather complex combination of situations, and any simple, one-sentence explanation is bound to be inaccurate in some way. We all just hope the guys calling the match can MAKE the right call, even if they're not so good at explaining it.

While you guys have definitely been the most entertaining thing on the board for a while, maybe it's time to shake hands and admit both sides were inaccurate without being defensive about it?