Soccer

A player (wearing the red kit) has penetrated the defense (in the white kit) and is taking a shot at the goal. The goalkeeper will attempt to stop the ball from entering the goal.

A goalkeeper dives to stop the ball from entering his goal.

Association football, commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players each. It is widely considered to be the most popular sport in the world. It is played on a rectangular grass field—also called a pitch—or occasionally on artificial turf, with a goal at each end of the field. The object of the game is to score by maneuvering the ball into the opposing goal. Only the goalkeeper may use his hands or arms to propel or catch the ball in general play. The team that scores the most goals by the end of the game wins. If the score is tied at the end of the game, either a draw is declared or the game goes into extra time and/or a "shootout" takes place to determine the winner, depending on the format of the competition.

The modern game was codified in England following the formation of the Football Association, whose 1863 Laws of the Game created the foundations for the way the sport is played today. Soccer is governed internationally by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, which is commonly known by the acronym FIFA. The most prestigious international soccer competition is the World Cup, held every four years. The World Cup's television and Internet audience is estimated at "28 billion in-home viewers worldwide" according to Business Week magazine.

Nature of the game

A football match at the AOL-Arena in Hamburg, Germany, May 2004.

Football/soccer is played in accordance with a set of rules, known as the Laws of the Game. The game is played using a single round ball, and two teams of 11 players compete to get the ball into the other team's goal, thereby scoring a point. The team that has scored more goals at the end of the game is the winner. If the teams have scored an equal number of goals, then the game is a draw or a tie. However, there are exceptions to this rule. An extra period may be added, or a penalty shootout is used as a tiebreaker. In this case teams alternate in taking penalty kicks until one team has converted more kicks than the other.

The primary rule of soccer is that the players (other than the goalkeeper) may not intentionally touch the ball with their hands or arms during play, except during a throw-in restart after a ball has gone out of bounds. Players usually use their feet to move the ball, but they may use any part of their bodies other than their hands or arms.

In typical game play, players attempt to propel the ball toward their opponents' goal through individual control of the ball, such as by dribbling, passing the ball to a teammate, and taking shots at the goal, which is guarded by the opposing goalkeeper. Opposing players may try to regain control of the ball by intercepting a pass or through "tackling" the opponent who controls the ball. However, physical contact between opponents is limited. In tackling, the ball must be struck first, before any contact with the opposing player is made. Soccer is generally a free-flowing game, with play stopping only when the ball has left the field of play, or when play is stopped by the referee. After a stoppage, play recommences with a specified restart.

At a professional level, most matches produce only a few goals. For example, during the English Premier League 2005-06 season, an average of 2.48 goals per match were scored.

The Laws of the Game do not specify any player positions other than goalkeeper, but a number of soccer positions have evolved. Broadly, these include three main categories: strikers, or forwards, whose main task is to score goals; defenders, who specialize in preventing their opponents from scoring; and midfielders, who dispossess the opposition and keep possession of the ball in order to pass it to the forward. These positions are further differentiated by which side of the field the player usually occupies. The players other than the "goalie" may be arranged in a number of combinations. For example, there may be four defenders, four midfielders, and two forwards, known as the 4-4-2 formation; or three defenders, five midfielders, and two forwards, known as the 3-5-2 formation. The number of players in each position determines the style of the team's play. More forwards and fewer defenders would create a more aggressive and offensive-minded game, while the reverse would create a slower, more defensive style of play. While players may spend most of the game in a specific position, there are few restrictions on player movement, and players can switch positions at any time. The layout of the players on the pitch is called the team's formation, and defining the team's formation and tactics is usually the role of the team's manager or coach.

History and development

Map showing the popularity of football around the world. Countries where soccer is the most popular sport are colored green, while countries where it is not are coloured red. The various shades of green and red indicate the number of players per 1,000 inhabitants.

Games revolving around the kicking of a ball have been played in many countries throughout history. According to FIFA, the "very earliest form of the game for which there is scientific evidence was an exercise... dating back to the second and third centuries B.C.E. in China." In addition, the Roman game Harpastum may be a distant ancestor of soccer. Various forms of soccer were played in medieval Europe, although rules varied greatly by both period and location. The sophisticated form of modern soccer originated in Great Britain.

While soccer has continued to be played in various forms throughout Britain, the English public schools (fee-paying schools) are widely credited with certain key achievements in the creation of modern soccer and rugby. The evidence suggests that during the sixteenth century, Richard Mulcaster the principal of Merchant Taylors' School in London was instrumental transforming soccere from a violent "mob" sport into an organized team competition considered beneficial to schoolboys. The game soon became institutionalized, regulated, and part of a larger tradition. Finally, in the nineteenth century, teachers and former students wrote down formal rules of early modern soccer to enable matches to be played between schools. The rules of soccer as they are codified today are effectively based on these efforts.

The first known set of soccer rules were written at Eton College in 1815. The Cambridge Rules were first drawn up at Cambridge University in 1848. These and other efforts contributed to the formation of The Football Association (FA) in 1863. which first met on the morning of October 26, 1863 at the Freemason's Tavern in Great Queen Street, London. The Freemason's Tavern was the setting for five more meetings between October and December, which eventually produced the first comprehensive set of rules.

Paul Gardner, in his landmark book, "The Simplest Game: The Intelligent Fan's Guide to Soccer," writes: "If there is a date marking the birthday of soccer, then it is December 8, 1863. The day the F.A. published its first set of rules—the day the F.A. banned running with the ball and hacking". At the final meeting, the representative from Blackheath withdrew his club from the FA over the inclusion of these rules. Other English rugby clubs followed suit, and would not join the FA. Instead, in 1871, they formed the Rugby Football Union. The 11 remaining clubs, under the leadership of Ebenezer Cobb Morley, went on to ratify the original 13 laws of the game.

The laws of the game are currently determined by the International Football Association Board, formed in 1886 after a meeting in Manchester of The Football Association, the Scottish Football Association, the Football Association of Wales, and the Irish Football Association. The world's oldest football competition is the FA Cup, which was founded by C. W. Alcock and has been contested by English teams since 1872.

The first official international soccer match took place in 1872 between Scotland and England in Glasgow, again at the instigation of C. W. Alcock. England is home to the world's first soccer league, which was founded in 1888 by William McGregor, the director of Birmingham-based team Aston Villa. The original format of the league contained 12 clubs from the Midlands and the North of England. The Fédération Internationale de Football Association FIFA, the international governing body of soccer, was formed in Paris in 1904, declaring that it would adhere to Laws of the Game published by the FA. The growing popularity of the international game led to the admittance of FIFA representatives to the International Football Association Board in 1913. The board currently consists of four representatives from FIFA and one representative from each of the four British associations.

Arrival in America

Soccer reached America with the Puritans and other early settlers. The first soccer club established outside Great Britain was the Oneida Football Club, formed near Boston in 1862. Soccer was the main sport the Ivy League universities before they American gridiron football. The first ever intercollegiate college football game, held in 1869 between Princeton and Rutgers, was a soccer game played according to the English Football Association rules. For the next three years, "the dribbling or kicking game" was played at Princeton, Columbia, Yale, and Rutgers. Harvard was undecided between the "dribbling game" and the "handling game," the latter of which was played in England as rugby.

In 1874 the Harvard team traveled to McGill University, in Montreal, to play two games, the first under soccer rules with a round ball, the second under rugby rules with an egg-shaped ball. Harvard easily won the first game but was held to a tie in the second. However, the "handling game" so impressed the Harvard men that they adopted the rugby rules. Before long, Harvard had converted the other American colleges to its new game, which gradually was fashioned into the American gridiron football of today.

The first battle to implant soccer in America may have been lost, but soccer did not disappear. Leagues formed on the Eastern Seaboard and in St. Louis, with teams such as the Brooklyn Celtics, Spanish-American F.C., and Anglo-Saxon F.C. Ethnic Americans continued to play the sport of their homeland and forefathers, and the United States sent a team to the first-ever World Cup and also appeared in the 1938 contest. In 1994 the United States hosted the World Cup.

The World's Game

Today, soccer is played at a professional level all over the world, and millions of people regularly go to soccer stadiums to follow their favorite team. A very large number of people also play soccer at an amateur level. According to a 2001 FIFA survey, over 240 million people regularly play soccer in more than 200 countries in every part of the world. Soccer's simple rules and minimal equipment requirements have aided its spread and growth in popularity. In many parts of the world soccer evokes great passions and plays an important role in the life of individual fans, local communities, and even nations. It is considered to be the most popular sport in the world.

Soccer has often been a force for peace and reconciliation. In 2002 longtime enemies Japan and South Korea successfully played host to the World Cup. Old rivals Holland and Belgium played host to the 2000 European Championship, and even ancient enemies Greece and Turkey made an bid—albeit unsuccessful—to play host to 2008 European Championship.

Soccer has even stopped wars. On Christmas Day 1914, German and British troops on the front lines during World War I put down their guns, came out of their muddy trenches, and played a soccer game. In one soldier's diary report, the Germans won 3-2. In 1969, Brazilian star Pele's trip to Nigeria with his club, Santos, produced a three-day cease-fire in the Biafran War. In 1990, rival factions in the Lebanon War took time out from killing each other to watch World Cup games beamed in from Italy. It was widely reported that the Côte d'Ivoire national soccer team helped secure a truce to the religiously based nation's civil war in 2005 after a team, consisting of both Christians and Muslims, qualified for the World Cup.

However, passions for the game also result riots between fans supporting revival teams, sometimes reaching the international level. Soccer is widely considered to be the cause of the so-called Football War in June 1969 between El Salvador and Honduras. The sport also exacerbated tensions at the beginning of the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, when a match between Red Star Belgrade and Dinamo Zagreb devolved into rioting in March 1990.

Laws of the game

Football is popular among children as well as adults.

There are 17 rules in the official Laws of the Game. The same rules are designed to apply to all levels of soccer, although certain modifications for groups such as juniors, seniors or women are permitted. The laws are often framed in broad terms, which allow flexibility in their application depending on the nature of the game. In addition to the 17 laws, numerous IFAB decisions and other directives contribute to the regulation of football. The laws can be found on the official FIFA website.

Players, equipment and officials

Each team consists of a maximum of eleven players, excluding substitutes, one of whom must be the goalkeeper. Competition rules may state a minimum of seven players are required to constitute a team. However, informal neighborhood "pickup" games are often played with less. Goalkeepers are the only players allowed to play the ball with their hands or arms, but they are allowed to do so only within the penalty area in front of their own goal. Though there are a variety of positions in which the outfield (non-goalkeeper) players are strategically placed by a coach, these positions are not defined or required by the Laws.

The basic equipment (kit) players are required to wear includes a shirt, shorts, socks, footwear, and adequate shin guards. Players are forbidden to wear or use anything that is dangerous to themselves or another player, including jewelry or watches. The goalkeeper must wear clothing that is easily distinguishable from that worn by the other players and the match officials.

A number of players may be replaced by substitutes during the course of the game. The maximum number of substitutions permitted in most competitive international and domestic league games is three, though the number may be varied in other leagues or in "friendly" matches. Common reasons for a substitution include injury, fatigue, ineffectiveness, or a tactical switch. In standard adult matches, a player who has been substituted may not take further part in the match.

A game is officiated by a referee, who has "full authority to enforce the Laws of the Game in connection with the match to which he has been appointed" (Law 5), and whose decisions are final. The referee is assisted by two assistant referees. In many high-level games there is also a fourth official (and in the World Cup a fifth official), who assist(s) the referee and may replace another official should the need arise.

Pitch

Standard pitch measurements

The length of the pitch specified for international adult matches is in the range 110-120 yards and the width is in the range 70-80 yard. Fields for non-international matches may be 100-130 yards length and 50-100 yards in width, provided that the pitch does not become square. The longer boundary lines are touchlines or sidelines, while the shorter boundaries (on which the goals are placed) are goal lines. On the goal line at each end of the field a rectangular goal is centered. The inner edges of the vertical goal posts must be eight yards apart, and the lower edge of the horizontal crossbar supported by the goal posts must be eight feet above the ground. Nets are usually placed behind the goal, but are not required by the Laws.

In front of each goal is an area of the field known as the penalty area, often referred to as the "18-yard box" or simply "the box". This area is marked by the goal-line, two lines starting on the goal-line 18 yards from the goalposts and extending 18 yards into the pitch perpendicular to the goal-line, and a line joining them. This area has a number of functions, the most prominent being to mark where the goalkeeper may handle the ball and where a penalty foul by a member of the defending team becomes punishable by a penalty kick—awarding an unobstructed free kick toward the goal from a distance of 11 meters. The field has various other markings and defined areas.

Duration and tie-breaking methods

A standard adult football match consists of two periods of 45 minutes each, known as halves. There is usually a 15-minute "half-time" break between halves. The end of the match is known as full-time. Each half runs continuously, meaning that the clock is not stopped when the ball is out of play. The referee is the official timekeeper for the game, and may make an allowance for time lost through substitutions, injured players requiring attention, or other stoppages, such as players trying to "waste time." This added time is commonly referred to as stoppage time, extra time, or injury time, and is at the sole discretion of the referee. The referee alone signals the end of the match. In matches where a fourth official is appointed, near the end of the half the referee signals how many minutes of stoppage time he intends to add, and the fourth official then informs the players and spectators by holding up a board showing this number. The signaled stoppage time may be further extended by the referee.

In league competitions games may end in a draw, but in some competitions it may go into extra time, consisting of two further 15-minute periods. If the score is still tied after extra time, some competitions allow the use of penalty shootout (known officially in the Laws of the Game as "kicks from the penalty mark") to determine which team will progress to the next stage of the tournament. Goals scored during extra time periods count toward the final score of the game, but kicks from the penalty mark are only used to decide the team that progresses to the next part of the tournament, with goals scored in a penalty shootout not making up part of the final score. In international games, a penalty-shoot win is listed as a tie in the record book.

Competitions held over two "legs"—meaning two games in which each team plays at home once—may use the "away goals" rule to determine which team progresses in the event of equal aggregate scores. If the result is still equal following this calculation, kicks from the penalty mark are usually required.

In the late 1990s, the International Football Association Board experimented with ways of making games more likely to end without requiring a penalty shootout, which was often seen as an undesirable way to end a match. These involved rules ending a game in extra time early, either when the first goal in extra time was scored, known as the "Golden Goal," or when one team held a lead at the end of the first period of extra time, known as the "Silver Goal". The Golden Goal was used at the 1998 World Cup in France and the 2002 World Cup hosted by Japan and South Korea. The first World Cup game decided by a Golden Goal was France's victory over Paraguay in 1998. At European Championship of 1996, Germany was the first nation to score a Golden Goal in a major international competition, beating the Czech Republic in the final. The silver goal was used in Euro 2004 in Portugal. Both these experiments have been discontinued by IFAB.

Ball in and out of play

Under the Laws, the two basic states of play during a game are ball in play and ball out of play. From the beginning of each playing period with a kick-off (a set kick from the center-spot by one team) until the end of the playing period, the ball is in play at all times, except when either the ball leaves the field of play, or play is stopped by the referee. When the ball becomes out of play, play is restarted by one of eight restart methods depending on how it went out of play:

• Kick-off: following a goal by the opposing team, or to begin each period of play.
• Throw-in: when the ball has wholly crossed the touchline; awarded to opposing team to that which last touched the ball.
• Goal kick: when the ball has wholly crossed the goal line without a goal having been scored and having last been touched by an attacker; awarded to defending team.
• Corner kick: when the ball has wholly crossed the goal line without a goal having been scored and having last been touched by a defender; awarded to attacking team.
• Indirect free kick: awarded to the opposing team following "non-penal" fouls, technical infringements, or when play is stopped to caution or send off an opponent. A goal may not be scored directly from an indirect free kick.
• Direct free kick: awarded to fouled team following certain listed "penal" fouls. Opposing players are entitled to obstruct a direct free kick from a distance of ten meters from the spot of the kick.
• Penalty kick: awarded to the fouled team following a "penal" foul within its opponent's penalty area, consisting of a direct, unobstructed free kick to the goal from nine meters away.
• Dropped-ball: occurs when the referee has stopped play for any other reason (e.g., a serious injury to a player, interference by an external party, or a ball becoming defective). This restart is uncommon in adult games.

Fouls and misconduct

A foul occurs when a player commits a specific offense listed in the Laws of the Game when the ball is in play. The offences that constitute a foul are listed in Law 12. Handling the ball, tripping an opponent, pulling and opponent's jersey, and pushing an opponent are examples of "penal fouls," punishable by a direct free kick or a penalty kick depending on where the offense occurred. Non-penal fouls are punishable by an indirect free kick, meaning that the player must pass the ball rather than shooting it direclty toward the goal.

For serious or intentional fouls, a referee may punish a player with a caution (yellow card) or sending-off (red card). A second yellow card in the same game leads to a red card, and therefore to a sending-off. Misconduct may occur at any time, and while the offenses that constitute misconduct are listed, the definitions are broad. In particular, the offense of "unsporting behavior" may be used to deal with most events that violate the spirit of the game, even if they are not listed as specific offences. Non-players, such as managers and support staff, may be dismissed from the field and its surrounds by the referee if they fail to conduct themselves in a responsible manner. After being sent off, a played may not be replaced, resulting in the offending team playing at a one-man disadvantage.

Rather than stopping play when a foul occurs, the referee may allow play to continue when its continuation will benefit the team against which an offense has been committed. This is known as the "advantage rule." The referee may call back play and penalize the original offense if the anticipated advantage does not ensue within a short period of time. Even if an offense is not penalized because the referee plays an advantage, the offender may still be sanctioned with a yellow card or red card at the next stoppage of play.

The offside law effectively limits the ability of attacking players to remain forward (i.e. closer to the opponent's goal-line) of the ball when the attacker is also forward of the second-to-last defending player including the goalkeeper, and past beyond the field's half-way line.

Governing bodies

The recognized international governing body of soccer (and associated games, such as beach soccer) is the Fédération Internationale de Football Association FIFA. FIFA's headquarters is located in Zürich, Switzerland.

Six regional confederations are associated with FIFA; these are:

• Asia: Asian Football Confederation (AFC)
• Africa: Confederation of African Football (CAF)
• Central/North America & Caribbean: Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF; also known as The Football Confederation)
• Europe: Union of European Football Associations (UEFA)
• Oceania: Oceania Football Confederation (OFC)
• South America: Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol (South American Football Confederation; CONMEBOL)

The recognized national associations oversee football within their jurisdictions. These are affiliated both with FIFA directly and also with their respective continental confederations.

Major international competitions

File:Fifa world cup org.jpg

The FIFA World Cup trophy, which has been awarded to the world champions since 1974.

The major international competition in football is the World Cup, organized by FIFA. This competition takes place over a four-year period. More than 190 national teams compete in qualifying tournaments within the scope of continental confederations for a place in the finals. The finals tournament, which is held every four years, involves 32 national teams competing over a four-week period. The 2006 FIFA World Cup took place in Germany and in 2010 it will be held in South Africa.

A soccer tournament has been played at every Summer Olympic Games since 1900, except at the 1932 games in 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Before the inception of the World Cup, the Olympics (especially during the 1920s) had the same status as the World Cup. Originally, the event was for amateurs only, however, since the 1984 Summer Olympics professionals have been permitted as well, albeit with certain restrictions which effectively prevent countries from fielding their strongest sides. Currently, the Olympic men's tournament is played at the Under-23 level. In the past the Olympics have allowed a restricted number of over-age players per team; but that practice will cease in the 2008 Olympics. The Olympic competition is not generally considered to carry the same international significance and prestige as the World Cup. A women's tournament was added in 1996 and in contrast to the men's event, the women's Olympic tournament is played by full international sides without age restrictions. It thus carries international prestige considered comparable to that of the FIFA Women's World Cup.

After the World Cup, the most important football competitions are the continental championships, which are organised by each continental confederation and contested between national teams. These are the European Championship (UEFA), the Copa América (CONMEBOL), African Cup of Nations (CAF), the Asian Cup (AFC), the CONCACAF Gold Cup (CONCACAF) and the OFC Nations Cup (OFC). Two of the most prestigious competitions in club football are the respective continental championships, which are generally contested between national champions, for example the UEFA Champions League in Europe and the Copa Libertadores de América in South America. The most prestigious competition until 2005 was the Intercontinental Cup which was contested by the winner club of the European Champions League cup and the winner of the Copa Libertadores. This was a single match played in Tokyo, Japan and went from 1980 until 2004. This was also known as the Toyota Cup. Due to the growing number of audience and interest of people from Africa, North America and Asia, this "cup" was replaced in 2005 by the FIFA Club World Championship in which there is no single match, but a whole tournament between the winners of the six club championships of each FIFA confederation.

Domestic competitions

The governing bodies in each country operate league systems, normally comprising several divisions, in which the teams gain points throughout the season depending on results. Teams are placed into tables, placing them in order according to points accrued. Most commonly, each team plays every other team in its league at home and away in each season, in a round-robin tournament. At the end of a season, the top team is declared the champion, and the top few teams may be promoted to a higher division, while one or more of the teams finishing at the bottom are relegated to a lower division. For example, in the English Premier League (EPL), the bottom three teams drop down into the Championship (second division, while the top three teams move up to the EPL. The teams finishing at the top of a country's league may be eligible also to play in international club competitions in the following season. The main exceptions to this system occur in some Latin American leagues, which divide championships into two sections named Apertura and Clausura (opening and closing), awarding a champion for each, or in Major League Soccer in the United States, which has a playoff system.

In addition to a league system, most countries operate one or more cup competitions during the season. These are organized on a knock-out basis, the winner of each match proceeding to the next round, while the loser is eliminated.

Some countries' top divisions feature highly-paid star players but in smaller countries and lower divisions, players may be part-timers with a second job, or amateurs. The five top European leagues - the English Premier League, the Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1 and Serie A - attract most of the world's best players. Manchester United in the EPL and Real Madrid in La Liga, are two of the biggest clubs in the world. Historical restrictions on the number of foreign players in a club's team have been largely eliminated by the Bosman ruling, a 1995 European Court of Justice decision that allowed soccer players to move freely to another club at the end of their term of contract with their present team.

Names of the game

The rules of soccer were codified in England by the Football Association in 1863, and the name association football was coined to distinguish the game from the other forms of soccer played at the time, specifically rugby . The term soccer first appeared in the 1880s as a slang abbreviation of Association football, often credited to Charles Wreford-Brown. In his book "The Simplest Game", Paul Gardner writes that the word soccer, was "student slang" in which the end of a word was dropped and replaced "with "er" or "ers" (e.g., "Brekkers" for breakfast) that coined the two words "rugger" from rugby and "soccer," evidently based on the abbreviation Assoc."Today the sport is known by a number of names throughout the English-speaking world, the most common being football and soccer. Although FIFA, the sport's world governing body, defines the sport they govern as Association football in their statutes, the most commonly used term by that organization and the International Olympic Committee is football.

Further Reading

• Gardner, Paul. The Simplest Game: The Intelligent Fan's Guide to the World of Soccer. MacMillian. ISBN 0028604016
• Glanville, Brian. The Story of the World Cup: The Essential Companion to Japan 2002. Faber and Faber. ISBN 0571210589
• Szymanski, Stefan and and Tim Kuypers (1999). Winners and Losers. London: Viking. ISBN 0-670-88486-3. 
• Murray, Bill. "The World's Game: A History of Soccer." University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0252067185
• Wangerin, David. "Soccer in a Footabll World." WSC Books. ISBN 0954013476

External links

• Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA)
• Asian Football Confederation (AFC)
• Confederation of African Football (CAF)
• Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF)
• Union of European Football Associations (UEFA)
• South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL)
• Oceania Football Confederation (OFC)
• The Current Laws of the Game (LOTG)
• The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF)
• Association of Football Statisticians (AFS)
• Forbes.com, International Football Club Valuations

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