Great question — answering as the UphillTech team:
Law 14.1 only specifies the location of other players as follows. The players other than the kicker and goalkeeper must be: at least 9.15 m (10 yds) from the penalty mark behind the penalty mark inside the field of play outside the penalty area Encroachment is not otherwise defined, so it is presumably used in its normal and relevant sense, to advance beyond the usual or proper limits . Law 11.1, Offside position, is written in a similar way; it specifies what counts as offside, but does not define what it means to be "nearer to the opponents' goal line" for example. The use of a physical position in space and not simply on the ground is not explicitly required in either case, nor is it...
Full answer by Nij: https://sports.stackexchange.com/a/29509 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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