Actually I was under the impression the ref blew the whistle immediately, well before Odonkor let rip. Considering Odonkor already had a booking to his name, he was lucky not to be sent off for timewasting under stupid FIFA rules.

Raybron, you were right, I had assumed (wrongly) that the offfsides rule would not apply on rebounds. Let me see if I finally got it right: if Ballack had got up and taken a shot on goal, he would be fine. But because he tried to pass backwards to Ondonker AND he was behind the last defenders that made him (the play/pass?) offsides?

Yep, that’s exactly what happened. It’s not really that complicated, if a guy plays a ball in and there’s someone behind the last defender he will get called if he touches the ball. I think people get confused because they think a close-quarters or rebound situation somehow changes the rule (or maybe it is a natural instinct to think this) but it doesn’t. Now say someone shoots and scores from behind the defense and there just so happens to be an offensive player loitering past the last defender but he is not involved in the play that is obviously not offsides (or we’d miss out on a lot of great goals). I could dig up the technicalities, but that is the gist of it.

I went back and looked at the play again, Klose first kicks it off the corssbar so the ball is ahead of Ballack who kicks it and hits the corss bar too. He’s onside until the ball bounces back behind him because the 2 Polish defenders chase the ball back leaving Ballack behind them on the ground. So then when he get’s up and plays the ball it’s from an offside position because only the keeper was ahead of him when the ball was played.