FootBall
Two teams of eleven players each fight to get a spherical ball into the other teams goal.
The players are not allowed to touch the ball with their arms or shoulders.
Each team has a goal keeper that is allowed to touch the ball with his arms and shoulders when he is standing within the marked area around the home goal, which is called the PenaltyArea (aka the "box").
That which one buys a large screen television for...
Not to start a religious war or anything, but the definition above is for what we Americans call SocceR. FootBall is what they play in the SuperBowl. :-) --JimboWales
I suggest AmericanFootball and EuropeanFootball as topics. :-) -- LarrySanger
Do non-Americans refer to Soccer as Soccer as well as FootBall?
If so, we could change this page to simply be a pointer to AmericanFootball, SocceR, and AustralianFootball.
I think AustralianFootball is the same thing as RugBy, but
I'm not an expert!
I have never heard of a SportS called EuropeanFootball. I believe that Soccer is an North American term that has spread also to Australia. I think EuropE, South America and AfricA uses the term FootBall for what Americans call Soccer.
Do the following investigation yourself:
- British site: http://www.football.co.uk/
- French site: http://www.football.fr/
- Italian site: http://www.football.it/
- South africa: http://www.safa.org.za/misstat.html
- Mexico: http://www.terceradivision.com.mx/
- Argentina: http://www.afa.org.ar/home.htm
- Brasil: http://www.brasilfutebol.com/select_language.sps
- India: http://www.indianfootball.8m.com/
A quick Internet-investigation leads me to believe that UnitedStates, CanadA, AustraliA and NewZealand use the word Soccer and the rest of the world uses the word FootBall.
-- LinusTolke
Americans, when for whatever reason we speak about soccer as "football," in order to avoid confusion with the sport we call "football," call soccer "European football." Even Yahoo! UK is determined to annoy you by calling it this.
Yahoo! UK - just as any other decent sports site - calls it European FootBall in order to distinguish between FootBall played in Europe and FootBall played on other continents, eg. South America. I would like to remind my fellow Americans that FootBall, by definition is played using one's feet, and not by holding on to it with your hands and running around like a headless chicken.