Soccer started in Ancient Egypt in the III century a.C. as a fertility ritual. But in the other hand, China had already invented the leather ball a century ago. That was when Fu-Hi, inventor and a governor of China, made a ball by joining lots of roots together. Then he covered the whole sphere of roots with leather. But that was used to pass from hand to hand.
Although, the Aztecs played tlachtli, that was sort of a combination of soccer, tennis and basketball. But in this game you couldn’t use your hands OR feet. And finally, the team that lost would sacrifice their captain.
Something similar to soccer was going on in Greece too. They played something that they called “esfaira”. This sphere was made out of an ox’s bladder. They also played in Italy where they called the ball “pila” or “pilotta”, which explains were the word “pelota” (meaning ball) in Spanish comes from. The sport was beginning to get very popular between cultures and people.
Romans took this sport all the way to England. But During the Middle Ages, the sport was prohibited in some places for its violent action. But it was later modified and used by the British Islands. The “dribble” started in the XIX century in public schools. Then it was taken to universities such as Oxford or Cambridge. There, the first rules for soccer were written, but their first regulations were written until in 1848. In 1863 the Football Association was made and that made soccer more modern, or at least more alike to the soccer that is played in actuality. After that, what happened was that Rugby was separated from soccer and were both now made into two totally different sports.
The word football comes from “foot” and “ball” as you would have guessed. This relates to soccer by being able to hit the “ball” with your “foot”. Then where does the word soccer come from?… It’s an abbreviation from the word association football. It also depended in which social class you belonged to; if you were in the high class or in a private school you would probably call this sport soccer, but if you were in the lower class or in a public school you would probably call it football.
Diego Armando Maradona was an Argentinian soccer player born in October 30, 1960. Some of his nicknames were “el diez” and “la pelusa”. Was and is considered one of the greatest soccer players in soccer history.He was born in Villa Fiorito, shantytown of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He had two older sisters and two younger brothers, who also became professional soccer players later in their lives. When Maradona was eleven, a talent scout saw him when he was playing in his neighborhood with a soccer club called Estrella Roja. He was sixteen when he started playing with the Argentina national soccer team. He played for Argentina in the Futbol World Youth Championship when he was eighteen. Argentina won against USSR team three to one. Maradona’s first World Cup was with Argentina in 1982 but lost their first game against Belgium. Then, they beat Hungary and El Salvador, so they still passed on to the second round. In the second round, they played against Brazil and Italy, and they were disqualified. In 1986, when Argentina was captained by Diego Armando Maradona, they went to another FIFA World Cup. Argentina won the World Cup. But in the quarter final against England, Diego made a goal with his hand. For the referee not to notice, he told his teammates to come and hug him so that the referee wouldn’t notice. The goal did count, even though the repetition showed when he hit the ball with his hand, so he called it “Hand of God” or “la mano de Dios”. After the game Diego admitted he had hit the ball with his hand.“I was waiting for my teammates to embrace me, and no one came . . . I told them, ‘Come hug me, or the referee isn’t going to allow it.” (Wikipedia)In that FIFA World Cup he played every minute.
Edson Arantes do Nascimento (A.K.A. Pelé), was born in Três Corações, Brazil, on October 23, 1940. He is an ex Brazilian soccer player and is known to be the best soccer player in all time. He won his first World Cup when he was only 17.He played in Santos (Brazilian team) for a while (1956 – 1975). He then decided to prove his luck with the North American Soccer League in the United States. Then in 1977, he played with Cosmos, a soccer team in New York. He retired in that team from his soccer career.He has two Guinness Book of Records marks. One of the records was for scoring the most goals during a soccer career. He scored 1279 goals from 1956 to 1977. And the other record mark for being the youngest player to ever score a goal in a Soccer World Cup final. This was in June 19, 1958, when he was seventeen years old playing against Sweden in Guttenberg, Sweden.Some Statistics:-1366 soccer games played-1282 goals scored-Most goals scored during a game: eight goals on November 21, 1964 against Botafogo de Ribeirão Preto, winning eleven to zero.-goals scored for the Brazilian National Team: 103-Most goals scored during a soccer season: 127 goals in 1959His 1000th goal:Pelé scored his 1000th goal on November 19, 1969 while playing against Vasco (Vasco 1 x Santos 2). There was a fault done by a Defense of Vasco. Pelé shot the penalty that was aiming toward the left pole of the goalie, Andrada. He dedicated this goal to the poor children of Brazil. A company that studies about the history of Brazilian soccer, that what was thought to be Pelé’s 1000th goal, was actually his 1002nd goal. But the goal he scored against Andrada is still thought of as Pelé’s 1000th goal.
Our soccer team attended the AASCA (Association of American Schools of Central America) Tournament this March from the fourth to the ninth. It was originally from the fifth to the ninth but the travel agency got our flights mixed up. So we arrived to El Salvador on the fourth and went to the hotel to settle for the night. We woke up the next morning and went to the mall because we didn’t have anything to do until the afternoon when we had the icebreaker with the other teams. So we went to the mall and came back to the hotel around 5:30 so we could be in time for the icebreaker. As soon as we got there, we could see now that the other teams had already arrived, and had already settled at the hotel. The icebreaker was right there in the hotel. It was in a large squared room with nothing in it, except for some plants, a table with a projector, and a screen. When our team was entering you could see how every team was separated from each other by school and country. Our team slowly sat in the middle of the room, slightly to the right of the projector. We laid there until a guy came up with a microphone and started to speak to us and showing us a slide show. We later went to eat, and then to sleep to get ready for the next day. We woke up early to get to the center where the opening ceremony was going to be held. We had to games; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Our next two days were spent like that too. The results for the tournament for the girls were: American International School (Costa Rica), Country Day School (Costa Rica), International School of Panama, Escuela Interamericana (El Salvador) and so on..
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