A Short Introduction to Soccer

Association football, also commonly called just football or soccer, is an intercollegiate team sport played between a spherical ball and two teams of eleven players. It is played professionally by about 250 million people in more than 200 nations and dependencies, making it the most popular non-professional sport in the world. It is considered to be one of the most sociable sports in the world and was the cause of many movies and sports events to come up such as the National Football League (NFL) and the World Cup.

There are two teams in every game: the offense and the defense. The offensive team tries to score goals by moving the ball towards the goal at the edge of the goal area or the field. The defensive team tries to prevent the opponent from scoring goals by stopping the ball at any point of the field or the goal. The goal can only be scored when the ball is touched by either team of the soccer ball.

The ball is kicked from the side of the center circle to a spot between the center circle and the defenders, usually the far post. Kickers are generally field players who have been trained to kick the ball with authority. The object of the game is to score more goals than the opponent. Kickers are not allowed to use their feet in kicking the soccer ball; instead they rely on their strength and agility to propel the ball into the goal. As in tennis, soccer relies heavily on timing, skill and physical strength. A successful team player must be able to quickly control his or her opponents using his or her feet and also be able to stop the opposition from scoring the goal.

Soccer is governed by an international soccer governing body, which is known as FIFA. The game of soccer has three phases, pre-season, the season and the championship. Each phase of the soccer season has three stages, the qualifying round, the group stage and the playoff. In the summertime, a tournament known as the World Cup becomes part of the soccer calendar and teams from all over the world participate in it.

A soccer player is usually classified according to the position he plays: goalkeeper, right wing, left wing, central forward, striker, central defender, outside forward, right midfielder and left midfielder. It is considered bad luck to be on the wrong side of the center forward or the goalkeeper, as these players are considered to be the most dangerous on the field. So to prevent such a situation, the center forward or the left midfielder should always be the best positioned player on the team, so that the other players can have a good view of where he or she is.

On the other hand, football is played with eleven players, which means that there can only be one player designated to be the goalkeeper. The other players are called players. So far, the most common soccer rules are as follows: the players have to keep their heads down, they cannot act like animals, they cannot act as if they have goals, they cannot kick the ball above their head or behind their head, and they cannot throw the ball toward their own goal. These are considered to be the most fundamental rules of soccer. It should also be remembered that soccer started way back during the ancient times and there have been no major changes made to it.