the offside rule is only in effect if the person recieving the ball is in front of the passer/ball. the ball can be played sideways or backwards (or forward as long as the recieving player is behind and runs onto it) and it doesn't matter. gotcha. thanks. That was the one thing I hated about refereeing - a majority of the parents not understanding what offsides was. That was so aggravating sometimes. we had a girl whose dad was absolutely terrible about that, yelling at the ref at any possible moment. she was completely embarrassed, and one game finally stopped, and yelled across the field "BILL! Shut the **** up!" didnt even call him 'dad'. it was great, he stopped talking at all during games. but on a more WC related note... thank God for univision because if i had to listen to dave o'brien and marcello balboa for one more minute i think i'd kill myself.