Everybody knows it, everybody watches it and everybody plays it… …Soccer
The ball is round and a game takes 90 minutes… The round one belongs into the angled… What’s Soccer?! Soccer is the most popular sport in the world. It’s a team sport, played between two teams of eleven players. To play the ball in the adverse goal is the sense of the play. Soccer is a ball game, played on grass or on the hard court. In the summer you play it outside and in the winter you are in a gym or an artificial turf field arena. The players only use their feet to kick the ball into position, they never use their hands or arms. But it’s allowed to use the head or torso in order to intercept the ball in the air. The goalkeeper is the only player who is allowed to use his hands and arms to get the ball. Only in the own penalty area he may use his hands. Spreading According to FIFA (=The Fédération Internationale de Football Association) over 265 million people played football in over 200 countries in 2006. About 38 million players played in 325.000 clubs. 207 countries are member of FIFA. In Germany more than six million people are active in 27.000 soccer clubs. Furthermore about four million people play soccer in hobby or company teams in their free time. The easy rules and the low equipment of the game make soccer a very popular sport. All over the world there are the same rules. Everybody knows, everybody watches it and everybody plays it. About six million people go to the soccer stadiums to watch a game every week. Not to forget the big number of spectators who watch the soccer games at home on TV. Roots of soccer There are many different traditions about the beginning of soccer. In the third century before Christ, the people in China played a game like soccer which they called “Ts’uh-küh”. However this was just a military education programme. In the course of time the game became more and more popular for the nation. The ball was made of pieces of leather and filled with animal hair already. 600 after Christ it became a national game. A ball filled with air was developed and the rules of soccer were defined. Cultures in Central America played a ball game like football as well. Indians played it in the presence of the Spanish king. In the Middle Ages, people in England played soccer, one village against the other. They tried to get the ball into the adverse village goal. The field between two villages was many kilometres long. This game was very brutal and often people were badly hurt, and therefore the church and the king banned it. So the game was forgotten. In France and in Italy there was a game which was very similar to the English one. Nevertheless England became the home country of soccer. The development of modern soccer When playing football in the free time became less popular, private schools and universities played it more and more in the sport lessons. In 1848 students made up the first standard soccer rules. For example a team consisted of 15 – 20 players. 1857 the first soccer club was founded, the Sheffield F.C. The first international match took place in 1872 and since then the size of the ball was defined. At that time more and more rules came over. Soccer in Germany The first soccer match in Germany was in 1847. A teacher of a school in Braunschweig introduced this game. Soccer wasn’t as popular as in England. For Germany it became a new kind of free time activity. Soccer was a sport only for better earning people, because the equipment was very expensive. In 1990 the DFB was founded in Germany. In the same year soccer started to be an Olympic discipline. Soccer all over the world The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) was established in Paris on 21 st. May, 1904. The FIFA fixed the international football rules and organizes international matches. The first FIFA World Cup was in Uruguay from July 13 th to July 30th, 1930. 13 teams played at this World Cup. Meaning for the association Soccer can be played nearly everywhere with a small effort. The rules are similar and accepted all over the world. Soccer has an important social factor. There are young as well as old soccer fans. You ever can play soccer when you are older as long as you have a good health. It combines all strata. The mass media boosts the world wide interest in sports. The next FIFA World Cup will be in South Africa in 2010. Probably 203 teams will apply for the qualification.
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