Football or Soccer....?

I just hope this title does not portray untrue truths like 'I adore Ronaldinho or Lionel Messi, or I support Brazil or Argentina and I am an ardent follower of Football, which I am not! Yes, I did watch the game this year- so that I fall a company to my husband who enjoys watching the game. It is then that I started pondering - why two names for a single game? I then began to explore our immense source of information - "GOOGLE" and came across a few things that astonished me. That is when I thought this to be worth sharing.

Ok lets move further, rather lets go back to 19th Century in England when arguments to standardize the rules for football among a congregation of private schools fountain headed two games - Rugby football (named after a school called Rugby) and Association football, after the Football Association.

Would you believe if I were to say-'the word Soccer is an outcome of slang’? It works like this: you shorten a word and add “-er” on the end. Similarly, recipe for the word ‘Soccer’ = chopped off the As from Association, slice off the –iation from sociation and called it “soccer”.  Sounds weird, but true!

One fact is that soccer wasn't universally accepted over football in the U.S. for a long time. The governing body for soccer in the U.S. was called the United States Soccer Football Association until 1974.

The game originated in Europe and most European languages call it FOOTBALL (Spanish: fútbol; German: Fußball; French: Football;…)! Also, it is ruled by FIFA (which stands for Federation International de Football Association – in French).

'If you’re reading this in the U.S. or Canada, then maybe you love soccer. If you’re reading this pretty much anywhere else, then perhaps you love football’. That says it all!