While calling the world’s most popular sport “soccer” is typically depicted as a symbol of American ignorance, the reason we don’t call it “football” like the rest of the world is Britain’s fault.

American football is called football due to its origin. Similar to soccer, its origin is from rugby football that your feet are used to successfully execute a goal kick.

Modern American football was established in 1874, during a game between Harvard and the McGill University of Montreal. American football is no less football than soccer. They all have the same roots and grew out of the same process like sports evolution. If only those two idiots had known that.

Historians trace American football back to two European cousins, soccer and rugby. Both began as kicking games. The game was played at the Rugby School and became known as rugby football, later shortened to rugby. Both soccer-style football and rugby-style football eventually found their way to America.

Brits coined the term soccer in the late 1800s to refer to Association Football, the sport we now know as soccer/football. For years both “soccer” and “football” were used interchangeably in England—football was the favored term, though “soccer” picked up use after World War II.

As is the case in the United States and Canada, association football is most commonly referred to in Australia as soccer. Historically, the sport has been referred to as British association rules and British football.

Music and games are played and it is a fun way for fans to prepare themselves for the game and to socialize with other fans. No other sport has such an important pre-game ritual involved with their sport and it is a core reason why American football is so popular. In the NFL, games are only played once a week.

Is It Popular in Europe? The answer is that American football isn’t very popular in Europe. People from this part of the world prefer soccer or rugby rather than the type of sport that North Americans like. Also, American football is the most popular North American sport in Europe.

Modern soccer’s roots are older than most people think. Dating back about 3,000 years, soccer is more popular than baseball, basketball, and American football combined, and is enjoyed in every continent by a total eight million people worldwide.

One of the best-known differences between British and American English is the fact that the sport known as football in Great Britain is usually called soccer in the United States. Because the sport originated in England, it is often assumed that soccer is an Americanism.

The terms “gridiron” or “American football” are favored in English-speaking countries where other types of football are popular, such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia.

It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification. Jamie Squire/Getty Images While calling the world’s most popular sport “soccer” is typically depicted as a symbol of American ignorance, the reason we don’t call it “football” like the rest of the world is Britain’s fault.

Andrei Markovits argues similarly that in the United States, soccer was “crowded out” by American (gridiron) football and baseball and therefore could not take root in the national culture [2]. Markovits also argues that gridiron football in particular draws upon and expresses a set of values and characteristics that are uniquely American.

Between 1960 and 1980, “soccer” and “football” were “almost interchangeable” in Britain, Szymanski found. Then everything changed ( via Szymanski ): “Since 1980 the usage of the word ‘soccer’ has declined in British publications, and where it is used, it usually refers to an American context.

Soccer: The word ‘soccer’ is believed to be derived from the term association football. With rugby football softened being shortened to ‘rugger’, a similar thing occurred with association football.