HOW IT ALL BEGAN…

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.