Soccer

Soccer

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Page Contents:

The History of Soccer

American Soccer

World Cup Soccer

Indoor Soccer

Soccer Tips

Soccer Trivia Tidbits

The History of Soccer

by Anne Clarke

There is not just one theory as to wear soccer came from. The history of soccer is a very interwoven tangle of different threads that have come to make up what we call soccer, today. It is certainly not solely the English who invented the sport; although, many people do credit the English with the great feat.

Back in 200 b.c. in China, a form of soccer was played – players would dribble a leather ball. This is perhaps the earliest evidence of soccer. Greeks and Romans also played a sort of soccer – a sort of soccer in which you could actually carry the ball and have teams of 27 players. Kyoto, Japan has also left evidence of a field marked out to play a ball-kicking game.

Soccer as we know it today, though, can be greatly credited to England. One popular story goes that the first ball was the head of a dead Danish brigand! Trying to describe where soccer came from can be more confusing than describing to a child where babies come from – there is not a simple answer. Of course, with soccer, there are certainly more than just two countries that gave birth to the game as we know it today.

Some form of soccer, or rather, a ball-kicking game, have been played at least somewhere at some time on the planet for 3000 years. Soccer has even been strong enough to withstand laws forbidding soccer set forth by both English royalty King Edward III and later Queen Elizabeth and Scottish King James I. No law could stop the history of soccer from evolving… the game of soccer was just too popular.

Official rules were set in England a few times during the 1800s. Different sets of rules varied the game a bit, but the official rules that we still use today were set in 1869 by the English Football Association. These rules included a rule that forbade the handling of the ball.

Where did the name “soccer” come from? Well, under the national Football Association in England, and sort of soccer played under its jurisdiction was called association football. As time passed, people tended to abbreviate the ward “association” into “assoc.” which eventually led to the word “soccer.” Of course, most of the world still calls soccer “football,” it is mostly just in North America that the sport is known by the name of “soccer.”

American Soccer

(Soccer Played in the U. S.)

American Soccer – there’s nothing quite like it in the rest of the world. Namely, because most of the rest of the world (except, perhaps, Canada) call the sport “football.” Of course, we Americans could not possibly call soccer football… we already have our own sort of football.

Our American football hardly resembles English football (American soccer) in the least bit. The balls aren’t even the same shape! American football is pretty much unique to America, similar only to that other rough (but un-padded) sport of rugby.

American soccer, though, is starting to become nearly as popular as American football. It is not quite on the same scale, yet, but it is working on it. Although the professional Major League Soccer does not have as many teams nor as many spectators as the professional National Football League, it is a new league and is already gaining in popularity.

It makes sense that soccer should gain in popularity. Whereas at football games, many of the spectators have never played, at soccer games the stands are field with current, former, and future soccer players and soccer moms.

The term “soccer moms” itself shows the popularity of the game. There are no “football moms” carting their kids to and from football practice. The term is “soccer mom” because so many kids are out there playing soccer. It is a sport that many Americans have played at some point in their lives. The moms are out there playing, too. The same cannot necessarily be said for football.

In fact, football is most definitely a male-dominated sports. Soccer is played by both young girls and women. There are certainly no women’s football teams in high school. Soccer stands to gain great popularity because there is more than just half the nation that can play it.

In fact, the US women’s soccer team has already gone out there and won 2 out of 3 World Cups! Soccer is a sport that is popular among all Americans, young and old, male and female.

World Cup Soccer

The concept of holding a World Cup Soccer Championship was originated by the 1920s president of FIFA, Jules Rimet. When planning for the first event began in 1926, the idea was to have the World Cup “in between” the Olympics. This does not work as well now, with the staggered hosting of the Winter and Summer Olympics, but even so it was a good idea.

Rimet and other officials organized the first event for 1930. The first World Cup soccer event was the only event to not include today’s qualifying rounds. The European teams involved were France, Belgium, Yugoslavia, and Romania. Many other European teams were dissatisfied with the location and refused to travel the distance to Uruguay.

There were a total of 13 teams in the first world cup. The remaining countries, outside of Europe and besides the host Uruguay were: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Mexico, and the United States.

World Cup soccer began on July 13th, 1930, when France beat Mexico 4 to 1, and a long, competitive history kicked off from that point.

The original FIFA World Cup Trophy was named the Jules Rimet Cup after its president and main World Cup organizer.

Indoor Soccor

The first recorded indoor soccer game was played in 1885, between the Western Football Association of Ontario and the O.N.T.’s of Newark on December 2nd. The game was held at the Newark Roller Skating Rink and was the first of a series of three. The series involved a challenge cup that included both outdoor and indoor soccer rink games. The rink games were at night, beginning at 9pm, and they were played under electric lights.

In that first indoor soccer game match, each team had six players and no substitutes. The referee initiated most restarts by tossing the ball into the air.

For most indoor soccer games, the typical rules are as follows:

INDOOR SOCCER KICK OFFS:
Kick offs can be played in either direction.

GOALKEEPERS:
Cannot hold the ball for more than 5 seconds.
Cannot punt or drop kick (but CAN throw) the ball over midfield.
Cannot pick up the ball if intentionally played back by own team.

FREE KICKS:
All free kicks are direct and the defending team must be a minimum of ten feet away.

BALL EXITING THE FIELD OF PLAY:
Any ball that exits the playing field over the sideline is restarted by a throw in. Ball cannot be thrown directly into the goal on a restart. An illegal throw results in loss of possession. Any ball that exits the playing field over the end line will be restarted by a goal kick or corner kick. Goal kicks cannot be played over midfield in the air. Violation of the midfield rule results in a direct kick from the midfield. Any ball that strikes a net, light, ceiling, or beam within the confines of the field is out of play. A direct kick restart will occur nearest where the ball hit. Exception: Within the goal box, ball is placed outside the box for restart.

SUBSTITUTIONS:
On the fly, substitutions may be done while the ball is in play. Player entering the field must wait until player exiting has stepped off the field nearest to bench. Violation of this rule could result in a 2 minute penalty (playing a person down). Fouls are not guaranteed substitution since opposing team may play the ball as soon as they wish.

5 FOUL RULE:
If a team accumulates 5 fouls within a half, a penalty shot will be awarded to the opposing team upon the 6th foul and each foul thereafter in that half.

YELLOW CARD:
All yellow cards will result in a man down situation for two minutes or until the opposition scores, whichever comes first. A second yellow card in a game will equal a red card. Three yellow cards in one tournament, and the player must sit out the next game.

Soccer Tips

Every soccer players wants to improve his or her game, no matter how could he or she is. There are lots of soccer tips floating around out there that could improve you game. Who knows which soccer tips will help you the most, but it can never hurt to try them all. Just focus on which part of the game you need to work the most on, and ask your coach for tips on how to improve it. There are also books and videos and other sources that can help you out, too. Here are a few tips to help you improve your soccer shooting skills:

Everyone wants to be the one to score that winning goal of the game. These are a few tips to help you reach that “goal.” First of all, do not shoot the ball just because you happen to have it. There may very likely be another player whom you could pass the ball to that has a better shot.

That said, here are some tips to improve your shot:

Curl your toes. You do not want to be using your toes when you shoot the ball – you could hurt your toes, and your shots will never go to the same place twice. Instead of using your toes, use the top part of your foot (where your laces are). This surface is much wider than your toe, which makes your shot more accurate and it hurts much less.

Get your knee over the ball. You do not want to kick the soccer ball over the goal. If you miss your shot but the ball does not go over the goal, you at least have the chance of somebody getting it in off of a rebound. To make sure your ball does not go over the goal, concentrate on getting your knee over the ball. To get the idea of what this means, stand on your left leg and point your right toe towards the ground next to the front of your planted left foot. Notice the position of your knee in regard to the position of where the soccer ball would be in a shooting position. That is what NOT to do. Now slide your right foot, which is still pointed toward the ground, back towards the heel of your planted left foot. Now notice how your right knee is now over the area where the ball would be when shooting. Now you’ve gotten your knee over the soccer ball.

Keep your head down. Your coach has probably told you this already. Looking up can reduce the chance of your hitting the target. You do, of course, want to glance up before shooting so that you can see where your target is, but while you’re shooting, keep your head down. Now you can focus on keeping your knew over the soccer ball.

Follow Through. Following through can change the speed of your shot.

Fake-out. When playing soccer, it is also a good idea to fake out the goalie so that he doesn’t know when you’ll be shooting the ball. It’s much harder to block the soccer ball if you don’t know where it’s coming from!

Soccer Trivia Tidbits

Following are some facts and tidbits that you may or may not know about soccer:

Soccer gave us the term "melee." It means a "confused mass," which was what the playing field looked like in Europe in the Middle Ages. Towns competed using teams of up to a hundred players, with the goals a half-mile or so apart.

Various forms of soccer-style games have been around since Roman times. In the United States some form of soccer was played in the Colonies as far back as the establishment of the original Jamestown settlement in 1609.

The first written accounts of soccer in the US centered on contests in the major colleges and universities of the Northeast. The freshman and sophomore classes at Harvard had instituted an annual intramural soccer contest in 1827, played on the first Monday of the new school year. These games were evidently quite rowdy, as the event was known as "Bloody Monday". Princeton played something known as "ballown" in which the ball was hit with the fist as well as the foot.

The modern form of soccer originated in England and the sport grew rapidly among working-class communities. Soccer was seen as a way of keeping young and energetic kids out of trouble at home and in the school; they could let off steam and learn the values of teamwork.

- Soccer originated generally in its present form in Britain.

- The world's oldest club formed in 1857 is Sheffield FC

- Soccer is the most played and most watched sport on Earth

- Soccer is called football in practically every country except America, who call 'Grid Iron' football and football soccer.

- Some famous soccer players: Pele, Maradonna, Charlton, Eusebio, Cruyff, Dalglish, Ronaldo, Beckham, Mattheus.

- The sport of Association Football (often referred to as soccer or simply football) is the most popular team sport in the world, in both number of spectators and number of active participants.

- The largest attendance for a soccer match ever was 199,854 people - Brazil v. Uruguay in the World Cup at the Maracana Municipal Stadium, Rio de Janeiro, July 1950.

- In the largest soccer tournament ever, no less than 5,098 teams competed in 1999 for the second Bangkok League Seven-a-Side Competition. Over 35,000 players involved!

- The most goals scored by one player in a single soccer match was 16, by Stephan Stanis (France) playing for Racing Club de Lens in December 1942.

- Based on video evidence, one of the fastest ever scored was in 2.8 seconds by Ricardo Olivera (Uruguay) in December 1998.

- The international governing body of soccer is the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), based in Zurich, Switzerland.

- Diego Maradona was only 16 when he made his soccer debut for Argentina.

- Soccer goalies didn't have to wear different coloured shirts from their teammates until 1913.

- Eusebio scored 46 goals in the European Cup for Benfica.

- Chris Woods once went 1196 minutes without conceding a goal while at Rangers, from between November 26 1986 and January 31 1987.

- In 1973, the entire Galilee team spent the night in jail for kicking their opponents during an Israeli League game.

Were there melees before soccer?

Possibly, but we didn't call them that - Soccer gave us the term "melee." It means a "confused mass," which was what the playing field looked like in Europe in the Middle Ages. Towns competed using teams of up to a hundred players, with the goals a half-mile or so apart.

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