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Amazing Soccer Pictures Definition

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Football refers to a number of sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball with the foot to score a goal. The most popular of these sports worldwide is association football, more commonly known as just "football" or "soccer". Unqualified, the word football applies to whichever form of football is the most popular in the regional context in which the word appears, including association football, as well as American football, Australian rules football, Canadian football, Gaelic football, rugby league, rugby union,[1] and other related games. These variations of football are known as football codes.

Various forms of football can be identified in history, often as popular peasant games. Contemporary codes of football can be traced back to the codification of these games at English public schools in the eighteenth and nineteenth century.[2][3] The influence and power of the British Empire allowed these rules of football to spread to areas of British influence outside of the directly controlled Empire,[4] though by the end of the nineteenth century, distinct regional codes were already developing: Gaelic Football, for example, deliberately incorporated the rules of local traditional football games in order to maintain their heritage.[5] In 1888, The Football League was founded in England, becoming the first of many professional football competitions. During the twentieth century, the various codes of football became amongst the most popular team sports in the world.[6]
Common elements

The various codes of football share the following common elements[citation needed]:

    Two teams of usually between 11 and 18 players; some variations that have fewer players (five or more per team) are also popular.
    A clearly defined area in which to play the game.
    Scoring goals or points, by moving the ball to an opposing team's end of the field and either into a goal area, or over a line.
    Goals or points resulting from players putting the ball between two goalposts.
    The goal or line being defended by the opposing team.
    Players being required to move the ball—depending on the code—by kicking, carrying, or hand-passing the ball.
    Players using only their body to move the ball.

In most codes, there are rules restricting the movement of players offside, and players scoring a goal must put the ball either under or over a crossbar between the goalposts. Other features common to several football codes include: points being mostly scored by players carrying the ball across the goal line; and players receiving a free kick after they take a mark or make a fair catch.

Peoples from around the world have played games which involved kicking or carrying a ball, since ancient times. However, most of the modern codes of football have their origins in England.[7]
Etymology
Main article: Football (word)

There are confilicting explanations of the origin of the word "football". It is widely assumed that the word "football" (or "foot ball") references the action of the foot kicking a ball. There is an alternative explanation, which is that football originally referred to a variety of games in medieval Europe, which were played on foot. There is no conclusive evidence for either explanation.
Early history
Ancient games
Ancient Greek football player balancing the ball. Depiction on an Attic Lekythos.

The Ancient Greeks and Romans are known to have played many ball games, some of which involved the use of the feet. The Roman game harpastum is believed to have been adapted from a Greek team game known as "ἐπίσκυρος" (Episkyros)[8][9] or "φαινίνδα" (phaininda),[10] which is mentioned by a Greek playwright, Antiphanes (388–311 BC) and later referred to by the Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria (c.150-c.215 AD). These games appear to have resembled rugby football.[11][12][13][14][15] The Roman politician Cicero (106–43 BC) describes the case of a man who was killed whilst having a shave when a ball was kicked into a barber's shop. Roman ball games already knew the air-filled ball, the follis.[16][17]
A Song Dynasty painting by Su Hanchen, depicting Chinese children playing cuju.

According to FIFA the competitive game cuju is the earliest form of football for which there is scientific evidence[18] though this view is disputed by scholars.[19] It occurs namely as an exercise in a military manual from the third and second centuries BC.[18] Documented evidence of an activity resembling football can be found in the Chinese military manual Zhan Guo Ce compiled between the 3rd century and 1st century BC.[20] It describes a practice known as cuju (蹴鞠, literally "kick ball"), which originally involved kicking a leather ball through a small hole in a piece of silk cloth which was fixed on bamboo canes and hung about 9 m above ground. During the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD), cuju games were standardized and rules were established.[citation needed] Variations of this game later spread to Japan and Korea, known as kemari and chuk-guk respectively. Later, another type of goal posts emerged, consisting of just one goal post in the middle of the field.[citation needed]
Paint of a Mesoamerican ballgame player of the Tepantitla murals in Teotihuacan.
A revived version of kemari being played at the Tanzan Shrine, Japan.

The Japanese version of cuju is kemari (蹴鞠), and was developed during the Asuka period.[citation needed]This is known to have been played within the Japanese imperial court in Kyoto from about 600 AD. In kemari several people stand in a circle and kick a ball to each other, trying not to let the ball drop to the ground (much like keepie uppie). The game appears to have died out sometime before the mid-19th century. It was revived in 1903 and is now played at a number of festivals.[citation needed]

There are a number of references to traditional, ancient, or prehistoric ball games, played by indigenous peoples in many different parts of the world. For example, in 1586, men from a ship commanded by an English explorer named John Davis, went ashore to play a form of football with Inuit (Eskimo) people in Greenland.[21] There are later accounts of an Inuit game played on ice, called Aqsaqtuk. Each match began with two teams facing each other in parallel lines, before attempting to kick the ball through each other team's line and then at a goal. In 1610, William Strachey, a colonist at Jamestown, Virginia recorded a game played by Native Americans, called Pahsaheman.[citation needed] On the Australian continent several tribes of indigenous people played kicking and catching games with stuffed balls which have been generalised by historians as Marn Grook (Djab Wurrung for "game ball"). The earliest historical account is an anecdote from the 1878 book by Robert Brough-Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, in which a man called Richard Thomas is quoted as saying, in about 1841 in Victoria, Australia, that he had witnessed Aboriginal people playing the game: "Mr Thomas describes how the foremost player will drop kick a ball made from the skin of a possum and how other players leap into the air in order to catch it." Some historians have theorised that Marn Grook was one of the origins of Australian rules football.
An illustration from the 1850s of Australian Aboriginal hunter gatherers. Children in the background are playing a football game, possibly Woggabaliri.[22]

The Māori in New Zealand played a game called Ki-o-rahi consisting of teams of seven players play on a circular field divided into zones, and score points by touching the 'pou' (boundary markers) and hitting a central 'tupu' or target.[citation needed]

Games played in Mesoamerica with rubber balls by indigenous peoples are also well-documented as existing since before this time, but these had more similarities to basketball or volleyball, and since their influence on modern football games is minimal, most do not class them as football.[citation needed]Northeastern American Indians, especially the Iroquois Confederation, played a game which made use of net racquets to throw and catch a small ball; however, although a ball-goal foot game, lacrosse (as its modern descendant is called) is likewise not usually classed as a form of "football."[citation needed]

These games and others may well go far back into antiquity. However, the main sources of modern football codes appear to lie in western Europe, especially England.