by Juan Martinez

Created on: July 17, 2010

One of the simplest laws in the game is the Goal Kick. If a ball gets kicked or deflected out of the field by an attacking player, it's a Goal Kick. But what about after that? What can you do with a Goal Kick? Are there any advantages other than the obvious (gaining possession of the ball)?

Perhaps the most unknown and unused subscript of the Goal Kick is the fact that an offside can not be called when the play comes directly from a Goal Kick. Why? The ball wasn't in play. Sure, the ball is already in the field when the game is restarted, but it is not yet considered to be actively in play. So how's this an advantage? We all know there are those players with an iron leg. Since most teams are unaware of this, any player that can kick the ball over the other team's last line of defending can send the it to his attackers.

I play in the Dallas Chamber Classic League. The team I'm in recently played a tournament. I unfortunately was only able to play some of the first game since I sprained my MCL, but I was able to witness a team's wittiness in using this law. They put their two fastest players in a position that would be considered offsides in any other circumstance of the game. Of course, the defenders were oblivious to this, confident that they were offside. Luckily for the defending team, the also oblivious referee called an offside. This caused a huge argument between the coach and the referee. Of course I was glad the bad call was made since I wanted my team to win, but it surprised me that even a referee was fooled by this unknown law of the beautiful game.

So why isn't it offside? Well if you look at it through another law of the game it makes sense. When a ball leaves a field on the lateral sides of the field, a throw-in is awarded. Because the ball isn't in play during a throw-in, there is no offside. So substitute the throw-in with goal kick when it leaves the field by crossing the goal line (but, of course, not resulting in a goal) and you have the same principle of the no-offside when ball isn't yet in play.

Although this law is a good way to get a huge advantage, it's just as, or more, unseen as it is unknown. I've only seen it once in my time in soccer. I will guarantee you won't see it used in a professional match, just because professional soccer is soccer with most trickery. If you don't believe me, watch this year's World Cup highlights. But don't get me wrong, I'm not in any way dissing soccer. I have no reason to. On the contrary, it is my passion and intend to play professionally some day.

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