Oddbean

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.

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 what’s going on with the rules though, like offsides 🤣

This was harder to articulate than I thought it would be😂 So usually, if someone passes the ball to someone that’s behind enemy defense players, it’s an offside. Let’s say Messi is lurking a couple of feet behind the most defensive opposing player. If someone else passes the ball to him, he can’t catch the ball because he was offside when the pass was done. He’d 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?

Wait. Soccer or football? I'm talking about ⚽ 😂 Green circle with the arrow is offsides. https://nostrcheck.me/media/3f770d65d3a764a9c5cb503ae123e62ec7598ad035d836e2a810f3877a745b24/d68cb26bacd9b5673d3c9da886b5ac54a8f569492da45e541d9498fd05d3188f.webp

It’s basically to prevent “goal hanging” (players hanging around the opposition’s goalkeeper). It’s quite a simple rule. What makes it contentious is being able to tell if the player receiving the ball was behind all of the opposition’s 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 “fouls” 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 you’re off the pitch) or a red card (bad or dangerous foul) and you’re instantly sent off. Fouls committed in the penalty box area lead to a penalty. You also can’t handle the ball hence it’s called football 😁

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. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯