The Eye

I was having a little debate on DALnet last evening. (DALnet is an IRC network).

I was making the point, to a Canadian lady, that what folks in North America call Soccer, the rest of the world, except for Australia, calls football. I think she was trying to yank my chain over the issue.

However, the point I was making is this. The game that Americans call soccer, was named officially named football in 1863. More to the point, although I’ll certainly agree that many words and spellings in American English are more logical than in British English, this is not the case with this game!

Association Football (Association being the word that somehow the term soccer was derived from around 1880), is played primarily with the feet; in the normal cause of play, players are not allowed to touch the ball with their hands at all, either deliberately or otherwise. The only exception to this, is when “throwing in” the ball, if it has been kicked over the boundary lines of the pitch. The goalkeeper can of course, also handle the ball, but they do not usually take part in the main part of the on-pitch play.

Also, Americans and Canadians, and Australians, need to be aware that in any other country besides those three, football is Football, and the game they play is American Football - you need two words to describe it.