Soccer
Soccer, known internationally as football, is a widely played team sport in which two teams compete to control a ball and score goals by getting it into the opposing team's net. The game is characterized by its simplicity and accessibility, making it popular across diverse cultures, particularly in Europe, South America, Africa, and the Middle East. Regulated by FIFA, the sport's premier event is the World Cup, which occurs every four years and captivates billions of viewers globally. The sport has ancient origins, tracing back to games played in various cultures, with formal rules establishing a distinct version by the 19th century. Soccer matches typically consist of two halves, and while scoring can be rare, effective strategy and disciplined play are crucial due to the game's low-scoring nature. Professional leagues thrive worldwide, with notable competitions in Europe and growing interest in the United States, particularly following the successes of both men's and women's national teams. The sport continues to evolve, attracting new fans and players, underscoring its role as a universal language of sport.
Soccer
Overview
Soccer is a team sport in which two opposing groups of players vie to control a ball, mainly using their feet, and score by placing the ball in the opposing team's goal at one end of a rectangular field. More commonly known as football (or association football) outside the United States, soccer is played in nearly every nation on the planet. It is one of the most popular sports in the world and is the most popular sport in much of Europe, South America, Africa, and the Middle East. The sport has had major cultural and economic impacts since being formalized in the nineteenth century.
The international governing body of soccer is the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). Every four years, FIFA holds the World Cup, a marquee matchup of men's national team from across the globe. The World Cup’s many tournament matches are played before capacity crowds and broadcast in more than two hundred countries around the world. In the twenty-first century, the estimated television audience for World Cups regularly surpassed 3 billion people, making it one of the most popular broadcasts of all time. FIFA also oversees the Women's World Cup, first introduced in 1991 and also held every four years, as well as many other tournaments. Soccer has also long been popular at the Olympic Games.
Origins and History
Like American football and rugby football, soccer owes its evolution to an ancient football-oriented game. Evidence of a rudimentary form of soccer can be traced as far back as the third and second centuries BCE to a military exercise called Tsu’ Chu during the Han dynasty in China. The exercise involved passing a leather ball through a small, one-foot-wide opening using only the feet, chest, back, or shoulders while other players attempted to block the target. Various incarnations of the game have appeared throughout history in societies around the world, including those of the ancient Japanese, Romans, and Greeks. All of these games differed slightly in the manner of play, but the general theme was consistent: moving a ball toward the opponent’s end of the field while navigating through the opposing team’s defense.
It is believed that a form of this sport traveled throughout the Roman Empire, including far northwest to the British Isles. There, the game continued to gain popularity and there are stories of play dating back to the twelfth century in England.
In the mid-1800, as the rules of the various versions of football began to be formalized, soccer and rugby diverged from one another. The early variants of football were played using two general codes of conduct: one permitted players to use their hands to carry the ball, while the other only permitted moving the ball with the feet. From the code of play allowing the use of hands emerged rugby football. The version that used only feet gave rise to association football (later dubbed “soccer” as an abbreviation of “association”). In 1863, the Football Association (FA) of England was established, becoming the first governing body of the sport.
The FA spent decades codifying the game, developing formal rules and regulations for its play. The sport’s popularity spread all over the world, with FA-style football being played as far away as Australia and Canada. Some other versions of football also emerged (including American football, in the late nineteenth century). The FA brand of soccer remained the primary version of the game for the modern era, particularly after the establishment of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport’s international governing body, in 1904. Today, FIFA included more than two hundred member nations, all of which seek to send a qualifying team to the FIFA World Cup every four years.
Historically, the United States, though one of the world’s biggest sports markets, was an outlier in that it did not have a substantial soccer presence. The men’s US national team did not qualify for the World Cup between 1950 and 1990 and otherwise struggled to achieve at a high level. In-country professional soccer leagues struggled to compete with American football, baseball, basketball, and ice hockey. However, US youth soccer programs increased in popularity in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, improving the foundation for both player development and fandom. The US women's national team established itself as a perennial contender, winning the Women's World Cup in 1991, 1999, 2015, and 2019 and Olympic gold medals in 1996, 2004, 2008, and 2012. The US men’s national team also improved considerably from the 1990s through the 2010s. The result was increased attention to soccer among Americans.
Rules and Regulations
The rules of soccer can vary from league to league and from level to level. For example, matches played between younger teams may take place on smaller fields with smaller goals and more substitutions than those between more advanced players. In general, soccer is played on a rectangular field, which is divided by a line at the center (the halfway line) and bounded by the touch lines along the sides and the goal lines at either end. A center mark is drawn at the midpoint of the halfway line, and a circle with a radius of ten yards surrounds the center mark. At the center of the goal lines are the goals, which measure eight yards across and eight feet in height. In front of each goal is the goal area, which is marked by two lines that are drawn at right angles from the goal line, six yards from the inside of each goalpost. The rectangular goal area extends six yards into the field of play. Extending about eighteen yards from each goal is a penalty area, a rectangular grouping of lines that run parallel to the lines marking the goal area. At each corner of the field are flag posts, as well as corner arcs, which are quarter circles that are drawn with a radius of one yard from each corner inside the field of play. There is also a flag post at either end of the halfway line.
In FIFA soccer, a match consists of two teams, which each have as many as eleven players (including a goalkeeper). Points are scored by shooting the ball into the goal. No player, other than the goalkeeper (or “goalie”) may touch the ball with their hands—ball movement is permitted by using only the feet, head, or torso. Although the use of hands is permitted for the goalkeeper, they may not do so outside the penalty area surrounding the goal.
A standard soccer match takes place over the course of two forty-five-minute halves. Play is stopped when a goal is scored, a player kicks the ball out of bounds, a player is injured, or other incidents occur that force the stoppage of play. However, in soccer, when such a stoppage occurs, the clock does not stop running. Instead, the referee will, at their discretion, calculate the amount of time during which play was stopped and add that time to the end of the half. This “stoppage time” does not appear on the official clock and could last as long as six minutes after the official end of the period. Ordinary stoppage, such as throw-ins and corner kicks (both of which entail putting the ball back into play after it has gone out of bounds), does not normally fall under stoppage time criteria.
Penalties often play an important part in the sport of soccer. A player who commits a hard foul or shows a pattern of rough play may receive a yellow card as a warning. Two yellow cards will cause the player to be ejected. A player who commits a major penalty, such as fighting, will receive a red card and be immediately ejected from the game. An ejected player’s team will then have to play shorthanded. Furthermore, if a foul is committed by a defensive player inside the penalty area, the opposing team will be awarded a penalty kick on the goal, pitting a player and the goalkeeper in a one-on-one situation.
Strategy and Tactics
Unlike other major sports, soccer is a game that rarely features high-scoring matches. Therefore, every goal is critical. In light of this fact, a soccer team must attempt to keep the ball on its opponent’s side of the field, thereby enabling their offensive players to take as many high-quality shots on goal as possible. One of the most effective strategies by which teams score a goal involves positioning one or two players in front of the goal and having other players on the exterior line up the ball by kicking it toward those players (who, in turn, quickly shoot the ball point-blank at the goal).
Effective passing and ball control are also essential elements of the game. A successful soccer team will be one whose players can effectively move the ball downfield and into scoring position. Soccer is a fast-paced game—an errant pass or failure to control a passed ball can result in a turnover, and an opponent that takes advantage of such turnovers can rapidly move downfield for a minimally contested goal.
Furthermore, players must be mindful of penalties. In a low-scoring game, giving up the ball or allowing a free kick could cost a team the game. Players must be disciplined, therefore, and be careful not to lose their tempers and mindful of their footwork, as even a minor foul could result in a turnover. Finally, players must be effective time managers. Stoppage play is highly unpredictable for players, so they must work in such a way that they score and hold onto a lead within regulation.
Professional Leagues and Series
Soccer is played at the amateur, collegiate, and professional levels all over the world. Many competitions are organized under the auspices of FIFA, which includes six regional bodies: The Confederation of African Football (CAF); the Asian Football Confederation (AFC); the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA); the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF); the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC); and the Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol (CONMEBOL). These confederations oversee multiple leagues and levels of play, whether involving national teams or professional teams. Most countries have one or more professional leagues, and professional clubs often participate in regional international tournaments as well.
Some professional soccer leagues are more internationally identifiable than others, exemplified by regularly filled stadiums, broad television exposure, and high-profile players from around the world. Among the best-known is the Premier League of England. The Premier League is home to such celebrated teams as Manchester United, Arsenal (London), and Liverpool FC, all of which boast a strong following in every corner of the globe and compete to sign superstar athletes. In Spain, the Primera division of La Liga hosts other internationally renowned teams such as FC Barcelona, Villareal CF, and Real Madrid CF. Germany's Bundesliga, Italy's Serie A, and France's Ligue 1 round out the “Big Five” of European leagues. Soccer also has notable professional leagues in Japan (J1 League), Russia (Russian Premier League), and throughout Latin America. In the United States, the primary men's professional league is Major League Soccer (MLS), which was founded in 1993 and first played in 1996. MLS also established a presence in Canada.
While soccer has been played by women throughout history, formal organization of women's leagues often faced substantial resistance in many countries over the decades compared to men's competition. By the late twentieth century many women's national teams were well established and successful, but professional women's leagues tended to remain more volatile into the twenty-first century. Most popular national leagues gradually developed women's equivalents—such as the Women's Super League in England, Liga F in Spain, Frauen-Bundesliga in Germany, Serie A in Italy, and Première Ligue in France—but some remained effectively semi-professional for years. In the United States, the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) emerged from earlier professional leagues in 2012 and steadily built a strong following.
In both men's and women's soccer, professional play exists alongside international competition. For example, a player may sign a professional contract and play for a Premier League club in England, but also train with and play for the Brazilian national team. FIFA maintains rules to determine a player's eligibility to represent a country in international competition, while various domestic leagues may have their own eligibility rules for international players.
At the pinnacle of international soccer is the FIFA World Cup. Played every four years, this tournament pits thirty-two (expanded to forty-eight for 2026) of the world’s best national teams against one another in one of the world’s most-watched sporting events. During the three years leading up to the globally televised tournament, hundreds of national teams play one another in officially sanctioned qualifying matches, and the teams with the best records are invited to what is technically known as the “Final Competition.” The seven national teams with the best records, along with the host team, are given the top seeds in the tournament and placed atop their respective groups (of which there are eight). The grouping system is designed to keep each group separated by geography to minimize the familiarity between teams. Because of the large number of qualifying European teams, this geographical spacing is somewhat compromised, but FIFA takes this fact into consideration and places a maximum of two European teams in the same group. The two teams with the best record of play in each group move into the Round of 16, and the tournament proceeds from there to the quarterfinals, semifinals, and the championship match. The two teams that lost to the semifinal victors then play a consolation match for the third place in the tournament.
Popularity
Of all of the major league–level sports in the world, association football is among the most popular. It is a sport that has universal appeal, particularly in light of its simplicity—all players need is an open field, goals, and a ball. For this reason, soccer is all-inclusive: it is played in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and across Europe, North America, and Latin America.
The FIFA World Cup has consistently drawn exceptionally large audiences worldwide. A number of matches in the tournament, broadcast to each team’s respective home audience, have set national records for the highest viewership. As a whole, the World Cup consistently generates some of the highest viewership statistics of any sporting event. Estimated total viewers exceeded 3 billion people for the 2010, 2014, and 2018 World Cups, for example, and in 2022 the final match alone was estimated to have around 1.5 billion viewers. Other soccer tournaments also draw massive attention; for instance, the 2020 Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) European Football Championship drew an estimated 5.2 billion total viewers and 328 million viewers for the final.
In the United States, soccer for many years experienced inconsistent growth and popularity. Even after MLS was founded in 1993, the sport long struggled to attract fan support and television coverage. However, the consistent quality of MLS play gradually attracted a growing fan base, which in turn fostered league expansion in the twenty-first century. Meanwhile, in 1994, the World Cup was held in the United States for the first time, helping to grow the sport's visibility. The great success of the US women's national team and improved performance of the US men's national team over the years also boosted the popularity of soccer in the United States into the 2020s.
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