My Favorite Sport

Name: Jorge Rivera Villarreal

Matter: English

Grade: 2°

Group: “B”

Enroll: F-3053

www.UAR.edu.mx

Universidad – Monterrey

Universidad – México

Escuelas – Monterrey

UAR

Introduction

Football refers to a number of sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball with the foot to score a goal. The most popular of these sports worldwide is association football, more commonly known as just "football" or "soccer". Unqualified, the word football applies to whichever form of football is the most popular in the regional context in which the word appears, including association football, as well as American football, Australian rules football, Canadian football, Gaelic football, rugby league, rugby union and other related games. These variations of football are known as football codes. Various forms of football can be identified in history, often as popular peasant games. Contemporary codes of football can be traced back to the codification of these games at English public schools in the eighteenth and nineteenth century.

Development

The influence and power of the British Empire allowed these rules of football to spread, including to areas of British influence outside of the directly controlled Empire, though by the end of the nineteenth century, distinct regional codes were already developing: Gaelic Football, for example, deliberately incorporated the rules of local traditional football games in order to maintain their heritage. In 1888, The Football League was founded in England, becoming the first of many professional football competitions. In the twentieth century, the various codes of football have become amongst the most popular team sports in the world.

The various codes of football share the following common elements:

• Two teams of usually between 11 and 18 players; some variations that have fewer players (five or more per team) are also popular.
• A clearly defined area in which to play the game.
• Scoring goals or points, by moving the ball to an opposing team's end of the field and either into a goal area, or over a line.
• Goals or points resulting from players putting the ball between two goalposts.
• The goal or line being defended by the opposing team.
• Players being required to move the ball—depending on the code—by kicking, carrying, or hand-passing the ball.
• Players using only their body to move the ball.

In most codes, there are rules restricting the movement of players offside, and players scoring a goal must put the ball either under or over a crossbar between the goalposts.

The Ancient Greeks and Romans are known to have played many ball games, some of which involved the use of the feet.These games appear to have resembled rugby football.The Roman politician Cicero (106–43 BC) describes the case of a man who was killed whilst having a shave when a ball was kicked into a barber's shop. Roman ball games already knew the air-filled ball, the follis.

Documented evidence of an activity resembling football can be found in the Chinese military manual Zhan Guo Ce compiled between the 3rd century and 1st century BC. It describes a practice known which originally involved kicking a leather ball through a small hole in a piece of silk cloth which was fixed on bamboo canes and hung about 9 m above ground.

In 1880, Yale coach Walter Camp, devised a number of major changes to the American game. Camp's two most important rule innovations in establishing American football as distinct from the rugby football games on which it is based are scrimmage and down-and-distance rules.

The word "football", when used in reference to a specific game can mean any one of those described above. Because of this, much friendly controversy has occurred over the term football, primarily because it is used in different ways in different parts of the English-speaking world. Most often, the word "football" is used to refer to the code of football that is considered dominant within a particular region. So, effectively, what the word "football" means usually depends on where one says it.

Association football is known generally as soccer where other codes of football are dominant, including: the United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. American football is always football in the United States. In francophone Quebec, where Canadian football is more popular, the Canadian code is known as football and association football is known as le soccer. Of the 45 national FIFA affiliates in which English is an official or primary language, most currently use Football in their organizations' official names. The FIFA affiliates in Canada and the United States use Soccer in their names.

A few FIFA affiliates have recently "normalized" to using "Football", including:

• Australia's association football governing body changed its name in 2007 from using "soccer" to "football"
• New Zealand also changed in 2007, saying "the international game is called football."
• Samoa changed from "Samoa Football (Soccer) Federation" to "Football Federation Samoa" in 2009.

Association football and descendants

• Association football, also known as football, soccer, footy and footie
• Paralympic football — modified Football for athletes with a disability. Includes:
• Football 5-a-side — for visually impaired athletes
• Football 7-a-side — for athletes with cerebral palsy
• Amputee football — for athletes with amputations
• Deaf football — for athletes with hearing impairments
• Electric wheelchair soccer

Conclusion

In the mid-19th century, various traditional football games, referred to collectively as caid, remained popular in Ireland, especially in County Kerry. One observer, Father W. Ferris, described two main forms of caid during this period: the "field game" in which the object was to put the ball through arch-like goals, formed from the boughs of two trees; and the epic "cross-country game" which took up most of the daylight hours of a Sunday on which it was played, and was won by one team taking the ball across a parish boundary. "Wrestling", "holding" opposing players, and carrying the ball were all allowed. By the 1870s, Rugby and Association football had started to become popular in Ireland. Trinity College, Dublin was an early stronghold of Rugby (see the Developments in the 1850s section, above). The rules of the English FA were being distributed widely. Traditional forms of caid had begun to give way to a "rough-and-tumble game" which allowed tripping.

Indoor/basketball court varieties of Football: