The offside messes began with some coaches organizing their defenses to take a sharp and coordinated lead in order to leave an unsuspecting attacker ahead. The Estudiantes de la Plata did it well already in the sixties; in Europe he practiced it successfully at the same time Sinibaldi, with Anderlecht; Rinus Michels was later a master at that. Little by little it spread. It was considered an unfair way to take advantage of the Regulations and from that idea arose the recommendation to the linemen not to raise the flag in case of doubt, and later the decision that if the attacker was ‘online’ there was no offside.
So far … But that snowball started rolling and the remedy was worse than the disease. It happened that it was not necessary to signal offside until the forward player did not receive the ball. A difficult theory of position, influence and position plus influence was developed, a mere mental straw, since the player in a forward position influences by definition. It influences the gaze of the goalkeeper, it influences the placement of the defense, it influences the mere fact of its disturbing presence. And if, once he is in an advanced position, he is active, pending to intervene, he is doing something unfair with the game and should be penalized with a foul.
To remedy the ‘manufactured offside’ it has ended in the absurdity that the lineman does not raise ‘just in case’ but then raises when the attacker has kicked out or the goalkeeper has stopped. In return, tolerance with ‘online’ has mutated, via VAR and its chicken sexers, in which they mark you offside for a nail, the opposite of what was originally intended. In that storm of confusion things happen like Unai’s corner not corner because he acted conditioned by the proximity of Benzema, while in Mbappé’s goal, the forward and active position of the French was not considered in the attempt to cut by Eric Garcia. This is in the hands of botarates.