Comments on: Why Do Americans Call It Soccer?

By: YRUH8ING

YRUH8ING — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:35:31 +0000

Because in America we got a sport that REAL MEN play called football…

By: GOUSA

GOUSA — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:57:56 +0000

Potato, potato, tomato, tomato. Let’s play! That is the game!

By: J Rodrigues

J Rodrigues — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:44:33 +0000

Well people might say that the brits created the world Soccer although they don’t use it at all. I am brazilian and I just can not understand what is the reason of calling it Soccer since you people that call it soccer don’t even play the sport, don’t know anything about it. All I’ve read in this article is about South USA, Australia, NZ and South Africa. People you don’t play football you play soccer that is why u suck at it!! understand soccer suckers. And a question how come the American Football got the name football but most of the time the ball remains on the players hand? wouldn’t it be easy user Handball. We don’t like when people call it soccer because anywhere where people are fascinated for football the sport is called football but you guys play rugby or whatever so just forget about it.. just let us play and enjoy and keep you criticism for yourselves.

By: USA Fan

USA Fan — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 08:10:09 +0000

Great article. Now when some snobby Euro soccer fan tries to bash me, i can just say that they made the word in the first place.

@Simon: If you actually read the article, it clearly states that the English CREATED the word first.

By: Simon

Simon — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 18:21:17 +0000

I think the real reason that the English, in particular, have a hang-up about Americans calling the game “soccer” is because it comes across as rather arrogant for a country that has no real history in the sport to decide to it a new name. It is doubly egregious when other countries follow the American model. I also suspect, deep-down that many people are concerned about the US adopting football and creating their own version to allow things like frequent advertisements and overt use of technology, as they have with baseball (originated from the game of rounders), basketball (originated from the game of Netball) and American football (which originated from Rugby football).

By: tash

tash — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 07:30:28 +0000

In New Zealand it is definitely called Soccer. No one calls it Football. Football or Footy in NZ means Rugby Union Football to the vast majority of the population. Some people might identify the term with Rugby league (A different game to Union). Only ponces or people who mix with the immigrant Pommie (UK) soccer crowd would ever use the term football to mean soccer.

By: Nick Tenaglia

Nick Tenaglia — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 21:51:51 +0000

To the writer of the article…..
Are you the Steve Amoia that went to McNamara High School in Forestville, MD?
If so, we were “soccer” teammates for one season when I was a senior and you were a freshman.
Great job on the article Steve!

By: Rogery

Rogery — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:41:52 +0000

Football (or soccer) is just one form of a game originally called football.

The rules of Association Football (soccer) were originally codified by a few clubs in England (1862?) who wanted a single set of rules, as several different teams played football using different sets of rules.

These clubs called themselves an association, became known as the Football Association (hence FA Cup, begining 1872), and the (modified) rules they outined are used today to play Association Football.

The rules of football within the association banned handling, catching etc of the ball, but some clubs preferred to continue to allow handling and so developed the rules for Rugby Football.

Rugby Football developed a schism between amateur and professional and the professionals broke away to form the Rugby League which is played a little differently than Rugby Union.

No such schism has ever occured wtih Association Football, the professional and amateur games and rules are identical.

American Football obviously is a variation of Rugby Football.

Other forms of football are Gaelic Football and Australian Rules Football, which is actually the clearest name. Technically it should be Association Rules Football or American Rules Football etc.

But it’s all a form of the original game called football which way back was just a mob (or two mobs) in the streets trying to propel a ball from one end to the other.

Soccer? Well we sometimes called it that as kids but I don’t think anyone in England uses the term now. And no one is going to call football Association Football or Association Rules Football anyway.

By: jeff

jeff — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:48:06 +0000

Yeah its Football..and Brits gave it nickname Soccer.

Im and Aussie and our organistaion changed its official name to Football 3 years ago..to use the formal name. As did New Zealand.

In South Africa they usually refer to Rugby as being Football…though the Football World Cup in 2010 held there so refer to the formal name also as well as Soccer.

The game Americans play is called Gridiron, the name they gave it is pretty much what everyone calls it. The pro league is nfl Gridiron.

By: Realmadrid_rocks

Realmadrid_rocks — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:40:57 +0000

a fascinating blog and the follow up comments are worth a read too.Good job by Steve Amoia.