Answering + Questioning

The Beautiful Game

Soccer has a lush history that can be traced back to the Han dynasty during the second and third centuries in China. The game was a form of physical training for the military and was played with a ball filled with feathers. The opposing teams attempted to kick the ball into a goal made of a net attached to bamboo poles. A similar form of the game was played in 16th century Italy. Calico, as the Italians called it, was played on holidays in the cities of Florence and Venice. Soccer had its modern founding in the public school systems of England. As the school children grew older and began to graduate they began to form clubs around to country to continue playing the game they loved. In 1872, England and Scotland played the first international match sparking the creation of many professional teams around Europe. In 1904, football associations from seven countries met in Paris and founded the Fédération Internationale de Football Association or FIFA, as it is more commonly known. Almost immediately after being founded FIFA began planning a world championship and in 1930 their plans came to fruition as the first world cup was held in Uruguay. Today the game is regarded as the most popular sport in the world with the most recent World Cup reaching over 3.2 billion viewers around the world. The final match of the 2010 World cup is the most watched sporting event reaching over 700 million people worldwide. Soccer’s popularity has grown so rapidly because of the games simplicity, the World Cup, and internationality.

Some sports such as football baseball, and basketball are overwhelmingly complex and can take years of playing and watching to fully comprehend. On top of their complexity, the rules for these sports are constantly changing from year to year. A sport has fundamental problems if the rules have to be altered before every new season. The rule changes create confusion even for avid fans and usually require expert analysis to comprehend. Most recently the NFL has been a consistent culprit of excessively changing the rules of the game. Twenty rules have been either implemented or changed in the NFL since 2009. However the latest change in soccer has been in 2012, which allowed for the use of goal line technologies. This is the first change in the rules since 1992. Another aspect of the games simplicity is its minimal equipment requirement. Many of the sports today require a great deal of equipment or multiple participants for the game to even work at a recreational level. All you need is a ball. Some grass or a flat area is helpful, but it isn’t a requirement. There are no pads, equipment, specialized fields, or anything else needed for the game. Shoes aren’t even required. All that is needed is a ball.

The World Cup is held every four years and preceded by the qualification round which is open to each and every nation around the world. Like the Olympics, the competition brings a multitude of different cultures and peoples from every part of the world together. The World Cup provides countries the opportunity to support and rally around their country, while accepting, tolerating and encouraging, the expression of all different cultures. It is truly a celebration of the enjoyment of the sport no matter where a person comes from. During 2010 World Cup in Germany, a truly amazing display of the power of nationalism the competition evokes was displayed by the civil war ridden Ivory Coast. The government controlled Southern half of the nation was warring with the rebel held North. Amazingly, the team composed by the warring Ivory Coast qualified for the World Cup. The news of qualification lead the two sides to call for a case fire for the duration of the tournament. The team was reassembled with the best players from both sides of the county. The Ivory Coast made a deep run into the tournament but was eventually eliminated. The love for the sport allowed the nation to put down its weapons and celebrate their team’s achievement as a whole.

In America most of the popular sports have spread, but they are still confined to the region. For example, football was invented in the United States but has spread to the north into Canada. They have even established a professional league called the Canadian Football League. Baseball, another American game, has spread around the globe and currently holds the Baseball World Classic to determine a world champion. Although soccer may not be among the top popular sports in the United States, the game certainly is around the globe. The game was spread to the colonies of England throughout Europe, Africa, New Zealand, and South America. The game became ingrained in the cultures of the colonies and eventually spread throughout the regions. With the inception of FIFA, countries scrambled to create national teams to compete on the world stage. The most recent FIFA World cup drew two hundred and three nations in an attempt to qualify for the tournament. Comparatively, there are fewer participants in the United Nations than there are in World Cup qualification. Brunei, Guam, Bhutan, and Mauritania were the only four nations that did not send teams for qualification. The only sporting event to surpass the vast number of nations participating in the World Cup is the 2012 Summer Olympic games, which drew two hundred and four nations. With so many countries playing the game and over two hundred and sixty five players world wide, the game of soccer crosses every national divide.

            The discussion of the most popular sport has been debated for years, and no concrete answer has ever been proved. However, rapid growth of the popularity of soccer through the games simplicity, the World Cup, and the nationality the game invokes has propelled the sport among the very top popular sports in the world. It seems tough for Americans to comprehend the true love for the game because comparatively we haven’t played soccer nearly as long as the rest of the world. As Americans we consider ourselves to be the best, the most powerful, we call our sports team’s world champions when they only compete against teams in our country. We love to be the best and we aren’t the best at soccer. In the future soccer will grow in our country as more and more immigrants bring the game with them. Soccer is certainly the world’s sport but it isn’t America’s. However with time we will learn to adopt the beautiful game.

Works Cited:

"SportsKnowHow.com - HISTORY OF SOCCER - Page 1 of 5 " History of Soccer SportsKnowHow.com. Internet Marketing Unlimited, Corp, n.d.13 Nov, 2013

<http://www.sportsknowhow.com/soccer/history/soccer-history.shtml>.

Kunz, Matthias. "265 Million Playing Football." Fifa.com. Fédération Internationale De Football Association, n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. <http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/fifafacts/bcoffsurv/emaga_9384_10704.pdf>.

"Almost Half the World Tuned in at Home to Watch 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™." FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale De Football Association, 11 July 2011. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. <http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/archive/southafrica2010/organisation/media/newsid=1473143/>.