What if offsides didn’t exist?
What if one of the most iconic and recognisable rules from the game was eradicated and no longer used?
Firstly, FIFA president Sepp Blatter has legitimately toyed with the idea of abolishing the offside rule a few years ago and had discussions with Leandro Negre, who is Sepp’s equivalent but in a hockey sense, I think, my hockey knowledge is very limited. As far as I understand, the discussion was only about pros and cons of the riddance of the rule, but as far as I know, the offside rule in hockey bared little to no resemblance to our beloved game anyway, but claims their game has become more open and exciting since it got rid of offsides over a decade ago now. But their game involves 5 angry blokes on ice beating one another with sticks, how much excitement do they need?
But would it be more exciting in football with no offsides? I based my entire primary school footballing career on standing vaguely near the goal, and waiting for the more energetic kids to punt it up into or around me and score (or at least have a go) and I must say, I could spend all day waiting and not get a sniff of the ball at all, obviously a professional athlete would have a lot more hustle and bustle about them, but it’s kind of the same, right? I’m essence, a new type of player would be born, a legitimate “goal hanger”, Inzaghi would of yearned for a passing of this rule. Is it too much of a radical change, though? I can’t even begin to think if it would improve the game or not, it would definitely increasingly likely to see a high scoring game due to no controversial offside calls to contend with, which, in turn leads to a more free flowing game as the referee will not have to consult his officials or technology, possibly in the future.
On the flip side, the game could become massively monotonous and the more tactically perverse of us would miss out on the defensive aspect of the game. If the rule beer existed, you would never of seen the legendary Arsenal defence that stepped up and raised their hands simultaneously to appeal for an offside, and that has a knock on effect of not being a memorable scene from The Full Monty, and we don’t want that to happen! The game would effectively be lump it into the box or latch onto a long ball, wouldn’t it? Luckily, this all seems to be pillow talk and died down recently, the last article I could find on it was 2010, so let’s just see how goal-line technology goes first before changing the fundamental rules of the game, the more powerful footballing heads must crawl before they run, ‘ey?
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