[Texas Eagle]

It's needed. It keeps the opposing team from crowding the goal, trying to keep someone right next to it so he can score when he gets the ball. If that were allowed, both teams would just crowd the opposing goal, and put defenders at their own goals to defend, and there wouldn't me much action on the rest of the field.

Basketball doesn't have an offsides rule and there seems to be plenty of scoring there.

Maybe basketball should institute an offsides rule and soccer should remove it.

I still won't watch either sport but, hey, it would still make the sport better.

[dfwgator]

Yeah, but basketball they score a hundred points, oh whoopee, Kobe makes another 20-footer.

You might as well just tune into the last two-minutes anyway, since the game always comes down to that, of course with all of the time-outs, it will take about 30 minutes to play those 2 minutes.