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- Football and soccer are highly acclaimed games, but soccer has worldwide attraction.
- Earliest known games having the similarity with football or soccer are reported to be in the third and second centuries BC.
- Since 1871, soccer and American football came as different versions of football.
- Soccer and American football have some similarities such as the number of players.
- Soccer and American football have many differences such as fields, scoring systems, time limits, geographic limits, leagues, and tournaments. These are described below.
Introduction
Football and soccer are highly acclaimed games of the world. American football and soccer are different games in many aspects. However, there are also some similarities as, for example, most of the rules of both games were evolved in the 19th century.
Soccer is considered as Association football, and more commonly referred to as football in most of the parts of the world. It has to be noted that the word football usually refers to the American football, which has many things in common with rugby as compared to soccer. American football is usually played in the U.S.A., but soccer is played worldwide, i.e. fans of football are mostly in America, but fans of soccer are present throughout the world.
History of the two games
FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), an international governing body of the soccer or Association football, has noted that cuju, a Chinese ball game in the third and second centuries BC, is among the earliest forms of football. In cuju, use of hands was not allowed. Earlier ancient games including Roman game harpastum and Greek team game known as Episkyros played in the time from 400-200 BC were also considered as the earlier versions of the football. It is thought that the game played by Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras) in London, which was described by William Fitzstephen in 1175 (in latin), was the game of football (Szymanski 4). Scotland also has a history of football during the 15th century. Oxford English dictionary has reported the first recorded use of the word “football” in English in 1486. Laws of various kings prohibited the playing of football games during the thirteenth and fourteenth century primarily to promote archery (Szymanski 4). Game was modified with the passage of time, and in 1871 two versions of the game came into being; Rugby football and Association football. According to a paper by University of Michigan professor Stefan Szymanski, the “association football” game was shortened to “soccer” and the Rugby football game was shortened to “rugger” (Szymanski 5).
The word “soccer” is believed to have originated in Britain about 200 years ago. It was even more popular in the very end of the nineteenth century. Soccer was more popular in the upper middle class students from some notable universities such as Cambridge and Oxford. It was also considered as a good game in the U.S. and was mostly used in the U.S. in the first decade of the twentieth century (Szymanski 17).
With the passage of time, the word soccer gained popularity in the U.S. to differentiate between the American football from soccer. The word “soccer” was frequently published since 1960 to 1980 in Britain. However, the use of the word “soccer” started declining in British publications since 1980, probably because it had become too “American”. However, if British publications use the word, they use it in the context of America (Szymanski 17).
Beat Zimmermann, the founder of the Air Navigation Institute, made these statements in order to differentiate football from soccer (Thomas huffingtonpost.com),
“Dear Americans, Here is an important lesson for you to learn: There is no sport called 'Soccer.' The sport that was invented between the years 220 and 680 (yes, years with 3 digits do exist) is called Football. Nobody knows why you guys call a sport that was invented somewhat later (1869) and is played by motorbikers (that's why they wear helmets, not so?) football. It's neither played with the feet nor with a ball. If you called it American Rugby I am sure nobody would argue.”
Similarities in the Number of Players and Teamwork in the American football and Soccer
American football has 11 players on the field at any point of time. Similarly, soccer has 11 players including a goal keeper. Both of these games show teamwork (Diffen, diffen.com).
Differences of Time Limit in the American football and Soccer
American football has four quarters of 15 minutes. In that game, there is a half-time intermission after the 2nd quarter. On the other hand, soccer has 90 minutes of game in which 45 minutes are assigned to each half of the game (Diffen, diffen.com).
Differences of the Object of game in the American football and Soccer
Purpose of the game also differs in the two games. In the American football, object of the game is to score points by taking the ball beyond the opponents touch line, such instances are known as “touchdown”. In this game, score can also be made by kicking the ball between the goal post known as Field Goal. On the other hand, object of soccer is to simply score a goal. Players have a goal on each end of the field – one goal belongs to the team and the other belongs to the team of opponents. Players have to put the ball in the opponent’s goal that is considered as a point (Diffen, diffen.com). While playing the game, Tackles are considered legal in American football and constitute a foul in soccer. Tackle is the move in the game in which players physically hold or wrestle the other player to stop him from achieving the objective or making the goal. It is considered as one of the defensive actions in football (Long, and Czarnecki 160).
Differences of Ball in the American football and Soccer
In the American Football, the ball is a prolate spheroid which is nearly 11 inches (about 28 cm) in length and approximately 22 inches (nearly 56 cm) in circumference at the center. On the other hand, the ball in soccer is a spherical ball (Diffen, diffen.com).
Differences in Fields in the American football and Soccer
Both the American football and soccer has large rectangular fields. However, the length of the field in the American football is 120 yards (i.e. about 110 meters) in total (Though it can range from 100 to 130 yards in length). There is 100 yards (nearly 91 meters) of playing field and two end zones of 10-yard (nearly 9 meters) each. Width of the field of the American football is 160 feet (i.e. nearly 49 meters). On the other hand, soccer has 100 yards of field (Diffen, diffen.com) in length and 53 yards of field in width. Soccer fields have a kickoff circle. There is also a midfield line along with two penalty areas.
Differences in Protective Items in the American football and Soccer
The American football has a number of different protective items such as helmet, upper leg padding, Shoulder/Chest pad/protector, and mouthguard. They used to wear uniforms. On the other hand, commonly used protective item in soccer are shin guards and boots (Diffen, diffen.com). Soccer players also used to wear shorts, jerseys, and cleats.
Major Leagues of the American football and Soccer
American football has the National Football League abbreviated as NFL. On the other hand, soccer has Barclay's premiere league BPL (Eng), Ligue 1 (France), SPL (Scotland), Serie A (Italy), Liga BBVA (Spain), and Major league soccer MLS (USA) (Diffen, diffen.com).
Major Governing Bodies of the American football and Soccer
The American football has NFL as the major governing body, whereas soccer has FIFA as the major governing body. National Football League (NFL) is the professional American football league that is one of the four major professional sports leagues in North America. FIFA allows only three substitutes per soccer game. On the other hand, unlimited substitutions are allowed during stoppages in football.
Major Tournaments of the American football and Soccer
The American football has NFL Playoffs. On the other hand, soccer has a World Cup. Moreover, soccer has also Champions League, FA Cup, Copa America, Euro, Super Copa, Copa Del Rey, Copa Libertadores, and Copa Italia (Diffen, diffen.com).
Concluding remarks
After studying the history of these games, we can find that initially soccer was developed with the concept of football and then the two games divided into slightly different versions in 1871 having different sets of rules. During the 19th century, these games gained much popularity and most of the rules were developed. With the passage of time, people from around the world start liking less violent form of the game, i.e. soccer, and people from America usually like football, i.e. American football that requires an additional level of protection.
Works Cited
Diffen. “Football vs. Soccer”. Diffen. Diffen, 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2014.
Long, H., and J. Czarnecki. Football for Dummies. Wiley, 2011. Print.
Szymanski, Stefan. "“It’s Football not Soccer”" by Department of Kinesiology, University of Michigan, May 2014.Web. 13 Nov. 2014.
Thomas, Emily. “This Is Why We Call It 'Soccer,' Not 'Football'”. HuffPost Sports. The Huffington Post, 13 Jun. 2014. Web. 30 Oct. 2014.
