Eh...he probably doesn't. It was the school lesson.
That said, I do, I played all of my youth, coached a couple years in my early 20s, and my daughter plays now. We look forward to seeing a World Cup game here in the USA in 2026.
Discussion
Cool! Has football (soccer) become any more popular in the states after Messi moved to Miami? I was in Miami when he played his first match and I was really surprised about the supporter engagement in the streets and in bars (away match).
It's slowly grown over the last 30 years IMO. When I was a kid, we had a small league with both boys and girls playing in the same league. We had a boys high school team. Now, we have separate boys and girls youth leagues, more age brackets, and middle school teams and high school teama for both boys and girls.
Slightly more. I def watch for Messi and love Inter Miami now.
I went to one San Jose game in the 90s and soccer back then was a very small fringe thing. We could hardly give away tickets on the radio for it.
I still have no idea whatās going on with the rules though, like offsides š¤£
This was harder to articulate than I thought it would beš
So usually, if someone passes the ball to someone thatās behind enemy defense players, itās an offside. Letās say Messi is lurking a couple of feet behind the most defensive opposing player. If someone else passes the ball to him, he canāt catch the ball because he was offside when the pass was done. Heād have to be right beside the defensive player or in front of him at the time of the pass to be onside. Does that make any sense to you?
That does, thank you! Thatās a good explanation. Because offsides means something totally different in American football.
Iām not too familiar with American football, how does offsides work there?
Wait. Soccer or football? I'm talking about ā½ š
Green circle with the arrow is offsides. https://nostrcheck.me/media/3f770d65d3a764a9c5cb503ae123e62ec7598ad035d836e2a810f3877a745b24/d68cb26bacd9b5673d3c9da886b5ac54a8f569492da45e541d9498fd05d3188f.webp
I was talking about ā½ļø too but nostr:npub1nl8r463jkdtr0qu0k3dht03jt9t59cttk0j8gtxg9wea2russlnq2zf9d0 mentioned š so I was wondering how offsides worked thereš
Itās basically to prevent āgoal hangingā (players hanging around the oppositionās goalkeeper). Itās quite a simple rule. What makes it contentious is being able to tell if the player receiving the ball was behind all of the oppositionās defence players at the exact time the ball was kicked to them. Hence the introduction of VAR to digitally do what the official linesmen do (those officials running up and down the side of the pitch).
Other main rules include āfoulsā I.e. impeding another player - the severity of which leads to either a yellow card (a warning, but get two of those during a match and youāre off the pitch) or a red card (bad or dangerous foul) and youāre instantly sent off. Fouls committed in the penalty box area lead to a penalty.
You also canāt handle the ball hence itās called football š
People here still gont get the rules though. At my daughter's game I kept saying that a girl on the other team was offsides and yelled to my daughter to continue cherry picking until the refs see it. I had a grandma tell me that they can't be offsides when they have the ball. She was a real Karen about it. I explained to her how it all works and that I've played and coached for many years. Her husband packed up his fold up chair and walked to the car after that. I wasn't mean about it. ĀÆ\_(ć)_/ĀÆ
Thankfully I havenāt seen the Karen parents at my nieceās softball games but I fear them already š¤£
If he's approaching soccer through the lens of "how do I create/evolve the rules of the game" he's gonna go far!
There are pawns, and there are players. Then, there are programmers who control the whole game š