Soccer v Football v Fútbol

No matter where you go, no matter what language you speak, the game of soccer is there.  The field may vary, perhaps a concrete slab, a luscious grass field, or even a rocky and dusty back road.  Some players have nicely pumped jabulani balls, other have rags they balled up, but they both roll, and both players have a love for the game.  The only real difference is the word they us to describes that game.

In the US and Canada it’s soccer (New Zealand and Australia did use the “American term”, but both countries have returned to the English word citing that FIFA, the governing body of the game, refers to it as Football, so they should too).  In England and 42 other counties it’s football or in most Spanish speaking countries, futbol.  Of course there are variations, like the Czech’s who use the term fotbal, just a variation of the English word.  But why the difference, the battle between Europe and The States over the term soccer seems silly, but people are very adamant about it.  Even I have started to use the term football and I don’t really know why, maybe the more I read the more I hear the term.  It makes sense, it is the original name, right?

Maybe not as much as people think.  The word football and its etymology is not completely agreed upon, but it is widely believed it began in European Medieval times when peasants would play games “on-foot” as opposed to the games of the higher classes that were played on horseback.  Thus leading to the creation of the word “football”.  As the sport grew, the term applied to just the specific game that we know now.

So why did Americans coin the term soccer?  Well, for all of you that hate the term and American’s for using it, you may be pointing your finger at the wrong country.   Soccer actually originated in England as an abbreviation for the term “Association”.  It just so happened that American’s continued to use the term after Europe gave it up.  ”By the late 19th Century the English had started to use ‘soccer’ instead of football so it would not be confused with Rugby Football, which eventually became known as just Rugby.  The word soccer is sometimes accredited to Charles Wreford Brown who is said to have coined the phrase in 1880.”http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_origin_of_the_name_’soccer’_as_opposed_to_’football’

So why do so many continue to battle over the correct word for the game we all so dearly love?  Most likely because it give us one more reason to pick sides and yell and cheer when we end up playing against one another on the pitch, or should I say field…

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