How was soccer invented?

Introduction

Have you ever wondered how soccer was invented? How did the history of soccer start? What are the facts?

If you love thinking about (and hopefully playing) soccer, this is the right website for you. This website has history, facts and answers about soccer.

History

The history of soccer can go back almost 2,000 years ago. Researchers studying in China have found evidence of early versions of soccer from looking at records about every continent. All throughout time, people have played games that include a ball and aiming for the opponents goal.

A lot of people think soccer started thousands of years ago. Soccer-like games were played in China and Rome around the year 200 B.C. Ancient Roman carvings show a soccer-like game.

People can't actually say the country that discovered the sport because there are a lot of sports similar to soccer that involve a ball. When we fast forward the time a little, the game that looks most like soccer today started in England back in medieval times.

How did soccer (or football) get Its name

In England and most of the world other than the USA, soccer is called football. Makes sense because you kick the ball with your feet, not like "American football" where you mostly throw and run holding the ball and hardly ever kick it with your feet. So they decided that football was the right name for the game we know as soccer.

Soccer is very popular around the world. People in England travelled all over the place with a football (or some people call it a soccer ball). They traveled to places like Austria, Brazil and Turkey. No one understands why the USA decided to call it soccer and not football.

1600-1846

Football was a game played at many schools in England, but the rules at every school were different. They kicked each other, they even started grabbing the ball.

In the year 1846, at a school called Cambridge University in England, the players agreed on rules and wrote them down. This started the modern version of "football," or what Americans call soccer.

Changes to the original rules

The British people changed soccer, the game we love and play today when people formalized a set of rules in the 19th century. Once the original rules of 1846 started to be followed, other rules started to be added that continued to the changed little by little.

Here are some of the early rules that were added after 1846:

Goal kicks: People first introduced goal kicks in 1869. Back then, goalies had around 30 seconds to keep the ball in their possession if they wanted to. Like if they were winning they can waste 30 seconds of playing time for the other team just by holding it before kicking. But if the goalie's team was behind and needed to score, the goalie would kick the ball away much faster. It was their decision..
Corner kicks: The first corner kick ever taken in the history of soccer was in 1875.
Whistles: The ref first started to use a whistle to control the game in 1878.

World Cup

The World Cup is an international soccer tournament contested by senior men's national teams from various countries around the world. For example, Argentina, Germany, England, Italy and Brazil are some of the countries that usually have strong teams competing to win the World Cup.

The World Cup is one of the most popular international sporting competitions. Over 3 billion people around the world tuned in to watch the 2014 World Cup.

The first World Cup was played in July, 1930 and the winning team was Uruguay, a country in South America near Brazil.

The team that won the most recent World Cup in 2018 was Fance. The World Cup takes place every four years, so this year in 2022 there will be a new champion crowned unless France wins again.

Brazil is the country that has won the most World Cups. Brazil has won five times in the years 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, and 2002.

Italy and Germany are tied for second place. Both of these countries have won the World Cup 4 times.

The USA won some games during the World Cup tournaments, but they have never won the World Cup championship.

Women's World Cup

The first women's world was played in 1991. The United States women's team has won the World Cup championship four times and that is the most out of every country in the entire world!

Some of the best players on the USWNT (United States Women's National Team) are:

Alex Morgan
Megan Rapinoe
Rose Lavelle

Modern soccer games are played on a field that is 125 meter long and 85 meters wide. Each team has 11 players, including a goalie, defense players, midfield players, and offense players.

Researchers have found evidence of games played in China more than two thousand years ago that are similar to soccer.

Different cultures around the world have played games that involve kicking a ball for thousands of years.

The World Cup Trophy is awarded to the team that wins the tournament. France won the Men's World Cup in 2018.

The USA women's soccer team has won the World Cup four times.

This logo from the Phillipines demonstrates how the rest of the world calls soccer by the name "football."

Visit these sources to find more information:

Websites about Soccer:

Books about Soccer:

The History of Soccer by Diana Star Helmer and Thomas S. Owens

Fun fACTS:

Did you know that pirates once attacked an English village? But the villager got their revenge. They killed the pirates, cut off their heads, and then kick around the heads in a game like soccer. That's the story at least.
In the year 1000, English villages played a soccer-like game played against other villages. The teams were large and the goals were miles apart!

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