Soccer

Soccer, or football as it is called in some parts of the world, is the most popular sport in the world! The actual name of soccer is association football, but most people don’t use that name.

In soccer there are two teams of eleven people who both try to get a ball into the goal on the other side of the field. The teams start off spread across opposite sides of the field. Only the goalkeeper is allowed to touch the ball. At half time the two teams swap sides.

Unlike rugby football, you are not allowed to touch the ball with your hands in soccer. The aim is to get the ball into the goal.

History

Soccer took it's modern form 200 years ago in England.

Before that it was very rough. There were no rules about the number of players in a team, the size of the playing field or how to play. Huge mobs of people would fight and kick a ball towards goals that could be miles apart.

Goals were sometimes at opposite ends of a town's main street. Sometimes everyone in the whole town would be chasing the one ball. In 1314 many English towns stopped people from playing because it was too rough.

Today soccer is played by far more people than any other sport and is played in more countries than any other sport. The top competition in soccer is the World Cup, which is watched by more people than the Olympic Games.