Content reviewed: 2026-09-12
Watching football is easier when position and action are kept separate: an offside position is not an offence by itself, and a ball touching the goal line is not necessarily a goal. These basics follow the IFAB 2026/27 Laws checked on the review date; older matches must be assessed under the edition used at the time.
Under IFAB Law 11, an offside position requires part of the head, body or feet to be in the opponents’ half, beyond the halfway line, and nearer their goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent. The goalkeeper counts as an opponent; a keeper who comes out may even be the second-last one. Hands and arms are disregarded for every player. Being level with the second-last opponent is onside.
Position is normally assessed at the first contact when a teammate plays or touches the ball; for a goalkeeper’s throw, it is the final contact at release. The player must then become actively involved, for example by touching the ball, challenging an opponent or clearly blocking their view. Merely standing ahead without affecting play is insufficient. There is no offside offence when receiving directly from a goal kick, throw-in or corner; a subsequent teammate’s pass requires a new assessment.
A common reason for a corner is that a defender last touches the ball before it crosses the defending team’s goal line completely without a goal being scored, whether on the ground or in the air. A corner can score directly against the opponents. Time-wasting can also lead to a corner. The 2025 change introduced that sanction for a keeper controlling the ball with hands or arms for more than eight seconds. The 2026 measures extend the principle to goal kicks: if the referee considers a restart too slow or deliberately delayed, a five-second countdown begins; failure to put the ball in play then gives the opponents a corner. This is not an automatic five-second timer for every goal kick.
A goal needs the whole ball to cross the line between the posts and under the crossbar, with no offence by the scoring team. A ball overlapping the line has not completely crossed it; a television angle that makes it look in does not replace that requirement. For an actual long-range example, see Tom King’s record goal, while distinguishing the recorded event from an explanatory diagram.
During a match, a typical reason for a penalty kick is a player committing a direct-free-kick offence inside their own penalty area; not every fall in the box qualifies. The taker must kick forward and cannot touch the ball again before another player does. At the kick, part of at least one goalkeeper’s foot must touch, align with or be behind the goal line. A penalty shoot-out is different: it takes place after the match has ended to decide a winner.