Do you know who invented soccer? Soccer is undoubtedly the most extensive and popular sport in the world. Regardless of which country you come from, surely the sport you have heard the most about in the media has been soccer.
- This is the sport that generates the most economic income worldwide and one of those sports where even governments tend to show great support for its growth. We can even say that the International Soccer World Cup, also known as the International Soccer Cup, is equally and comparable in popularity to the Summer Olympics, that’s how popular this sport is.
- No other sport in the world has as large a fan base as football or media coverage of this magnitude. Hundreds of boys and girls have dreamed of becoming soccer players one day since they were little. We grow up with the idea that this is the best sport in the world and we are very excited when our favorite team fights for glory against another team.
- But what do we know about who invented soccer? If you are one of the people who believe that this sport was invented in the United Kingdom in the 19th century, let me tell you that there are many more things that you need to know about the origins of this sport.
- Historically and paleontologically, vestiges have been found that show that there have been games very similar to soccer in pre-Hispanic America, to be more exact in places like where the country of Mexico and Guatemala are located today. Where there was a very popular game which was the “game of the ball”, tlachtli or ōllamalīztli in Nahuatl. This game was played a lot in Mesoamerica and it was a sport very similar to what you hear is soccer.
- However, very similar games have also existed in ancient Asia, more specifically in China. For this and more reasons is that today we want to inform and deny what were the beginnings of soccer.
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- The origin of the word football is a romanization of the compound word in English ” football“, which means football or ball foot. It is very easy to deduce why this sport has this name, the game tries to kick the ball. It is all except in its American variant, since in the well-known American football how the ball is handled is very different.
- It is popularly believed that soccer was invented in the United Kingdom at the beginning of the 19th century and that it has its origins based on the sport of Rugby. Some of this could be true, in its origins, soccer was a game quite different from what we know today. To begin to clarify what we are referring to, in Europe, this game was a little more similar to a fight to get a ball, where the brutality of violence was not long in coming and was hardly in short supply.
- However, there is evidence and historical documents that contradict this theory for hundreds of years. In the time of Elizabeth I of England, this sport was already carried out both as entertainment for royalty and as part of it. There are even historical documents that tell how Mary Stuart entertained herself by watching football matches held at Carlisle Castle. We are talking about the 1500th century and at that time this sport already existed.
- Even before this, there was already evidence that this sport had been practiced in Scotland, as there is a letter from one of the treasurers of the palace of James IV of Scotland that mentioned that the king had bought equipment to play soccer. Some historical data confirm that by the year 1497, this sport was already practiced.
- There is a manuscript from the Han era in China that affirms the existence of a sport in which players showed their ball control skills and were divided into teams. Several historical pieces of art show how Chinese players played with balls using their legs to kick them as a display of military skills.
- Cu-ju was a very popular sport in ancient China, priests, royals, and nobles entertained themselves by watching Cu-ju matches. They even had goals, which makes it a sport very similar to soccer and volleyball, since they not only used their legs to pass the ball to the goal, but also their heads and hands. This game was known as Cu-ju which means “kick the ball”. This game was already practiced 3 centuries before Christ (more than 2300 years ago). In 2004 FIFA recognized Cu-ju as the forerunner of modern football.
- In Mesoamerica, soccer already existed, practiced by the Aztecs and Mayas, among other Mesoamerican cultures, which was a common part of religious rituals. Before playing, the participants consumed a substance derived from desert plants such as cactus or nopal, whose purpose is to reduce pain in the body to resist the game. The ball was moved using the hips, knees, and elbows and had to be passed through a goal which had a circular shape. It was a natural rubber ball weighing approximately 4 kilos. A bad move could be deadly, only the strongest and most agile men could resist the game.
- But possibly, soccer with the rules that we know and with the parameters that are used and prevail today, was formulated later, possibly after the year 1560. What we can affirm is that this sport became more popular as it is known today, in the year 1863, when it began to become more popular in British populations.
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If you are a fan of this sport, we recommend you look at more of the articles that we have related to soccer, you just have to go to other articles that we have published.