The way you said it, a keeper could pass to his right back and then a striker would be given offside. That's why they have the interfering with play jargon.
Erm, no he wouldn't, but I see your point.
However, it is a mess and I too think we should revert. As it stands not even the professional refs/linos are consistent with each other.
And as a defender I'd be pretty pissed off with no flag if I pushed up only for the ball not to go to the intended (offside) opponent but to the player running onto it right next to him.
It's all part of FIFAs drive to namby pamby tappy tappy football. No tackles, give the benefit of doubt to the attacker, etc, etc. Yes
a high scoring game is more 'entertaining', but there is also a lot of skill involved in defending properly too.
It can be (although as Lumps mentioned in another thread you can have pretty good 0-0s), but surely the point of a goal is that there is no guarantee one will be scored...meaning it's value increases as a result of it's scarcity. Therefore we should ensure that the goal remains a rare event or we'll endup with a crap sport like basketball. On top of that a well timed tackle (I originally wrote that as tickle
) is a thing of great beauty and means cloggers like me can still play.
On the note of scarcity, someone should tell Blatter that the reason we like the World Cup and the Euros are that they only happen once every four years...familiarity breeds contempt.
