Why is American Football named as such, why do Americans refer to European Football as Soccer, and why does it seem to be a touchy subject between both fanbases?
In: 0
Believe it or not american football and soccer have common roots,that’s why it’s called football. We stuck with soccer cause that’s what the English called it at some point too.
Both forms of [modern] football have their origins in sports played at elite English boarding schools. Yes, people have been playing games where they kick around balls for probably as long as we’ve had balls, but both kinds under question have a clear pedigree.
The first thing you need to realize is that the “foot” in “football” does not refer to the fact that you hit the ball with your feet; it refers to the fact that you play on foot, and not on a horse like in polo or several other upper-class sports that have mostly faded (though horse polo remains popular, and look up a wonderful game called “horseball”).
As for why Americans call it “soccer”, that’s because the English used to call it soccer too! Originally there was Rugby football (which eventually developed into modern Rugby, American football, Australian-rules football, Canadian-rules football, etc. which is sometimes called “gridiron football” abroad for clarity) and Association football, which evolved into modern football in the common international sense. “Soccer” developed *in England* as an abbreviation for “Association football”.
In my experience, it’s mostly touchy because some non-Americans insist that American football isn’t really football, often mocking it in the process. Many Americans are proud of what they consider to be their premier sport, and don’t like what they consider to be undeserved mockery.
Non-Americans sometimes don’t like it when Americans refer to “soccer” because they feel that it’s just another example of how America-center Americans are; another example is calling themselves “Americans” when lots of South and Central Americans try to insist that they are in fact Unitedstatesians (*estadounidense* in Spanish) and that “American” refers to anyone from anywhere in the two continents in question.
[removed]
At first in England there was association football, and rugby football. Well that was confusing so the British started saying soccer and just rugby. So when the US was naming stuff we kept their soccer name, and then since they weren’t using the football name we started using that. So now we have soccer and football. Soccer was their name, they named it that and now for some reason they get all twisted up that we still use their name for the game.
Latest Answers