by Daanyaal

Created on: April 30, 2008

Well before I go ahead and tell you what the offside trap actually is, I think it would be better for you to have at least a basic have a basic understanding of the rule itself. Of course you can easily just go on to another article explaining the rule but that would be quite long and you'd rather stay on this article, right.

The offside rule:
A player, in this case X, is offside when he is passed the ball by a team-mate, Y, but he is only offside when he is actually standing behind the last defender, Z, from the other team. This is a good rule because it doesn't allow players to just stand by the goal and get passed to.

Now, teams play this thing called the "offside trap," what's that you might say, I'll explain, now that you know what the offside rule means, you should also know that teams use this rule to their advantage, this can be done in many ways allow me to elaborate:

1. The defenders of a team could stand a bit higher up the pitch than usual as the striker's from the other team can't stand behind the last defender. This would be like forcing the strikers away from their goal.

2. During an indirect free-kick, just before the kick is taken, all the players from the defending team can run forwards, leaving all the strikers exposed in offside positions so if an opponent touches the ball he has automatically given away a free-kick.

Also a good point to make is that when a team does decide to play an offside trap they have to time it perfectly as there have certainly been cases where most of the team have done well and ran forward but one or two defenders remain where they are allowing all the players from the opposing team become onside.

The offside trap can also be avoided by the opposition using some clever passing and some fast running. A clever technique to look out for is when where the striker remains onside until the ball is hit forward by a team-mate and the player quickly sprints past the defenders and then hopes to hit the ball into the back of the net. This would then be a goal. And that's more or less it, hopefully now you know what is meant by the term "offside trap" and it's all thanks to me.
Thank you for reading

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