Football is a very popular sport in Europe, it has been around for decades and it continues to gather a lot of attention. However, if we go to the US, the term football is something way different. Which does bring the question, why is the football game from Europe named Soccer in the US? Let’s find out.
Why are there different terms for the same game?
Every country in the world aside from Australia, Canada, Ireland and the US calls the game football. However, not those countries are at fault for the difference. The official name of the game, associated football, is deriving both of these nicknames. Soccer is actually deriving from the “associated” part of the game, and football comes from the second part of the term.
If we think about it, rugby was called rugger around 200 years ago, so things have changed quite a bit from that. Even if the term soccer was used by the British for some time, they ditched the term soccer around 1980 because it was too American and they sticked to football.
The American adoption of this game
Americans already had their own type of football, so upon adapting this game to their own market, they had to find another name. Which is why they went with the name that was abandoned by the British for quite some time. American Football is what we call Rugby right now, and it’s something very interesting.
Will the US refer to the game as football in the future?
The chances of that happening are slim to none. There are already many American football associations, and an entire game named football. So yes, the chances of that happening are very low. But it does go to show that there will always be different situations and things that can happen out there. In the end, what matters is that the sport named football is very established in Europe.
If you want to find it in the US or Canada, you just have to search for soccer. It’s pretty much the same game, the name differentiation being there because the US has their own sport named American football so they couldn’t call this the same. It’s quite an interesting thing, since you don’t really find the same sport being called different things in multiple countries. But it’s definitely one of those cool things you need to know about football!
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