World Cup fans are only just realising why Americans call football ‘soccer’ | Football | Sport
Football fans tuning in for the World Cup are only just realising why the sport is known as ‘soccer’ in the United States. The word tends to stir up a certain level of fury among Brits, where the national sport has always been known as ‘football’. That convention is followed in virtually every other country throughout the world, but things are slightly different across the Atlantic.
Any talk of ‘football’ in the US usually refers to the sport derived from rugby union that sees padded-up players score touchdowns rather than goals. Instead, ‘soccer’ is the word of choice to describe the beautiful game that is known by the rest of the world as ‘football’.
While many Brits remain firmly opposed to the use of ‘soccer’, most people don’t realise that it was actually invented by the English.
A historic dictionary, Passing English of the Victorian Era, explains how the word ‘soccer’ may have originated from the University of Oxford as a contraction of the term ‘association football’.
It reads: “Soccer, however, is an excellent example of Oxford minting, whether or not she can claim the credit of its invention. For the rule is as follows: take any word in common use; knock the end off and add ‘er’.
“If it should sound acceptable, it suffers no further multation [sic]. If it is still harsh and cacophonous, see what it will look like by striking off its head and the casual removal of an intermediate syllable.
“All these processes appear to have been gone through in order to produce ‘soccer’ from association. Rugby was more fortunate. It had only a tail to lose.”
In the past, the terms ‘football’ and ‘soccer’ were largely interchangeable in the UK. Back in 1950, when England were beaten by the USA at the World Cup, the Daily Mail described it as ‘the biggest soccer upset of all time’.
Sir Alf Ramsey, who played in the match, used the same phrase in his autobiography. When he led the Three Lions to World Cup glory in 1966, the word ‘soccer’ was used on the front page of the Daily Mirror.
Newspapers would continue to use the term without anger or consequence for many years until the 1990s. Soccer AM, arguably the most popular morning football show of all time, stayed on air until 2023 when it was cancelled by Sky Sports.
Now, the word ‘soccer’ is almost exclusively used in the US to differentiate the sport from American football, which is simply referred to as ‘football’.
The sport is occasionally ridiculed as ‘handegg’ by those opposed to the use of the term ‘soccer’, using the same logical naming conventions as ‘football’.
