Association Football is approaching its 150th birthday in England and the global popularity of the sport continues to grow.
The football blogosphere has exploded in the last 10 years; web pages can vary from, intensive tactical analysis to transfer speculation to nostalgia for a bygone “Golden Era”.
The interesting debate for the 21st century is how the rules of football will adapt to the inevitable increase in speed and defensive organisation, which have been steadily on the rise for the last 60 years. I would say the key change that must happen in the next 20 years to cope with the pace and intensity of the modern game is a very sensible amendment to the offside law.
What??? When you mention changes to the offside law, most people are appalled at such blasphemous statements and fail to hear you out, but let me set the scene for you and see if you can’t convince your mates of my controversial yet completely justified stance.
Football is game with many trends and cycles; we like to imagine that in the past there were tonnes of goals scored and slowly but surely the game evolved to become more structured, with reduced average score-lines, but this is not really so.
From the 1870’s to 1925, the offside law meant there had to be 3 defenders (including the goalkeeper) present between the opposition attacker and the goal-line at the moment the ball was played forward towards the attacking player.
As football became more tactical and professional in the early part of the 20th century so the goals began to dry up, with 0-0 score-lines (unheard of before) becoming very common in the 1920’s; the reason for this was the ease with which the two central defenders could communicate to each other that one of them should “step up” the pitch and thereby catch the opposing forward player in an offside position.
Offsides became prevalent and many journalists at the time decried that it was the death of football. The crucial change came in 1925 as the FA amended the offside rule – they changed it from 3 defenders to 2 defenders (including the goalkeeper) needed between the attacker and the goal-line at the moment the ball is passed forward.
This new rule led to around 2000 more goals being scored in England in the 1925/26 season as opposed to 1924/25. Tactical formations had to change and defenders could no longer rely on catching forwards offside. It resulted in far more space opening up on the field of play and led to what was to become the “beautiful game” throughout the century.
All I am proposing is that we follow this logical progression and learn from the cycle of History by freeing even more space on the pitch, amending the rule from 2 defenders to just 1 defender needed to play an attacking player onside, effectively the goalkeeper.
Abolishing the offside law altogether would cause too many problems; cynical goal-hanging forwards are the first one that springs to mind. This would not be an issue with the new amendment though, as the goalkeeper could “step up” the pitch and the goal-hangers would then be offside.
Football is a game of passing and moving into space, and this fundamental dynamic would not be affected by such a rule change. Imagination, skill and flair would become the key attributes once more. Old fashioned wing play would return, complimenting the pace and athleticism of the modern era.
Average score-lines would undoubtedly increase, and the genuine excitement and entertainment that attacking football can create would be a far more common event.