So my friend Alice calls me.
Alice: What is “offsides?”
Deb: Like in soccer?
Alice: Of course, World Cup, hello? You are the soccer mom, can you explain it to me?
Deb: Over the phone?
Alice: Why not?
Deb: Typically you need notepaper, chalk, or piles of coins to explain the intricacies of offside offenses.
Alice: Try me.
Deb: Okay. Well, the team trying to score can get an offense called if their guy in front is offside, meaning he is the closer to the opponent’s goal than he is to the ball and to the opponent team’s player who is closest to the goal but not the goalee.
Alice: Wait, what?
Deb: Well, actually it doesn’t have to be their goalee. Basically you can’t receive or rush the ball if you are closer to the two defenders who are closest to the goal than you are to the closest guy on your team who has the ball.
Alice: Whoa wait what? Closer to the closer guy? I don’t get it. Say it again.
Deb: Do you have Splenda packets and a stack of pennies? Because what you need to do is put a Splenda packet as goalee and one for sweeper, then make one of the pennies a fast guy from the other team. So your team is the pennies….
Alice: Yeah, no.
Deb: Well, the thing is teams just can’t set themselves up for having an advantage by sending one guy to go hang out by the goal and wait for a pass or ricochet or something. The game would be so boring, right, just a guy hanging out with the goalie, talking trash to him, waiting for a pass to bump in? Sort of like Biden. Or Jay Leno. You know, not cool.
Alice: But I could play that position, I’m going to keep that in mind. Okay, I’m getting it. Being offside is cheating.
Deb: Well, no, not being, you have to be in play with the ball. And it’s not cheating, mostly it happens accidentally because they are all moving so fast, or like the player is offside not intending to take a pass, which is not an offense, but then gets into play, which IS an offense, or mostly the line ref thinks he sees offsides but his perspective is off. Also, defenders can trap a forward into being offside by pushing up.
Alice: Can I talk with one of your kids, please.
Deb: Never mind, I probably didn’t explain it right. I need sugar packets to teach this. Really, all you need to know is that if your team is flagged, it was a bad call. The ref read it wrong. Clearly that was NOT offsides. And if your team gets scored against, PROBABLY what happened was no one called a blatant offside on the other guys. “How could the ref have missed that?” That’s what you should yell. “He was SO offside! Nice offside, really nice!”
Alice: That I can do. Sigh. I just really like soccer all of a sudden.
Deb: I understand. Those men are really, really, really pretty, aren’t they?
Alice: So pretty. So very pretty. I guess I can just learn the rules by watching and watching and watching. And watching.
Deb: Yep, just study their legs. That’ll do it. My work here is done.
I’ve been a soccer mom for 12 years. I barely understand offsides – but now, thanks to your stellar explanation, I actually DO get it. I think it was the sugar packets.
Offsides is crazy. Every time it’s called, I end up turning to the parent next to me, nodding and saying wisely, “Offsides.” The thing is, I NEVER know if it’s correct or not – but they don’t know either, so we both just nod and smile.
You bring up excellent points, mainly about how awesome high school would be if I could go back.
I look young for my age and no one in this town knows me. I could be European – everyone knows those kids look older.
I think I can pull this off….