Theme Week, Part 5

Jeremy's Sametime Status Proudly Presents:  Soccer Improvements Week!  #1 - Change or Eliminate the Offside Rule

All this week, in celebration of Euro 2012, which is a soccer tournament or something, Jeremy's Sametime Status and Jeremy Is In The Office, in association with Miracle Posting, Inc. proudly presents an entire theme week dedicated to the improvement of this great game.  

That's right, LIR.  While the sport of soccer may be well known and beloved outside of the United States (I guess there's a "rest of the world" out there), its popularity in this country lags other more "American" sports like Basketball and NASCAR.  As it turns out, if Americans aren't always the best at something, we think it's stupid and don't want to watch.  So despite the US having its own soccer league which is able to play sport the American way (Throw unholy sums of money at already-famous talent to pretend we give a crap...See Also: Becham, David, and Yankees, New York) Americans just aren't quite as in-tune with the game as others around the world.  To try to rectify that, I've created a series of changes that soccer can implement in order to broaden its appeal to American audiences, who are more willing to pay ridiculous amounts of money to watch games...and isn't that what sport is really all about?  

First off, Offsides.  The offside rule is confusing enough to explain to somebody when there is a fixed position which governs it (Such as the Blue Line in hockey).  In soccer, the position of "Offside" changes with respect to the positioning of the defenders, and also only applies before the ball is kicked in the general direction of a player.  Whether the ball can be deemed to be played to that person is subjective and at the discretion of the ref.  On top of that, there is a play called an "Offside Trap" in which the defenders all move up in unison in order for an offensive player to be called offside without actually doing anything.  

Sure, the concept of Offside is marginally necessary.  The intent is to prevent "Cherry Picking" in which one or more players on a team just hang out deep in the offensive zone, wait for a turnover and for the ball to be kicked the length of the field before the defense has time to react.  This practice is common in grade school sports, is akin to Internet Trolling, and is considered (at the very least) bad form among trained athletes.  By the time you get to games being played on TV, this sort of thing shouldn't work, so having a confusing and constantly-in-flux rule to prevent it is just unnecessary.  Let's go ahead and get rid of the current Offside rule, or replace it with a Blue Line on the pitch somewhere between the goal box and the center line.  It will help people who pay attention to soccer once every 2-4 years understand the game a little bit better.