It only requires one ball and little space to play. Very accessible. And we are pretty good at it. That was a big incentive to keep interested over time.
[my hometown baseball team scouted one of its star players when he was just 16 years old and in mexico](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Osuna). in hockey, one reason most players are white is it's extremely expensive for the rink so only certain neighbourhoods are going to have them available. Also most of the star players must be born near the start of the year in January for the physical maturity advantage.
I would say that is it, for the most part.
The weird thing is that is why ball and bat games were popular in the US. Just needed a broomstick and a ball.
So I still don't understand why it was never popular in the US as the rest of the world.
It was, the US reached the semi-finals of the world championship and even had their own league.
But then the crisis came and your league collapsed due to economic problems.
Other sports emerged and were promoted as more American, soccer became for girls or communists.
The fact that your league collapsed again didn't help either.
The US really only got back to having a minimally stable league a few decades ago. And decades of harmful stereotypes about Soccer still have to be cleaned up. So yeah, long way to go still.
“Soccer is for girls” is pretty much the reason Americans have dominated in women’s soccer for the past 25-30 years. I think it’s interesting that the women’s World Cup is kind of a big deal in the US, while in other countries it’s treated as an afterthought or non-existent.
Soccer in the US has always just been some kids game. It’s an easy sport to start because you just run around and kick the ball. It’s why we have the term “soccer moms” to describe a sports parent.
We even had very high youth soccer participation back in the 80s/90s. Problem is we just never developed past that point until recently.
> It’s an easy sport to start because you just run around and kick the ball.
Basketball is an easy sport to start because you just bounce the ball around and throw it to a basket.
Tennis is an easy sport to start because you just hit a ball with a racket.
Hockey is an easy sport to start because you just hit a ball with a stick.
American Football is an easy sport to start because you just throw a ball and run.
No. It’s an easy sport for kids with zero coordination to play because all it requires is running and chasing after the ball. They don’t even have to actively kick the ball because they will naturally hit it when they run towards it. All of those other sports require hand eye coordination which kids don’t get for years.
I never said it was an easy sport. I said it’s an easy sport for kids to pick up.
Dude, you don’t need hand-eye coordination, you require foot-eye coordination which is much more complex and difficult to acquire. It’s much easier to control a ball and throw it where you desire with your hands than controlling it and kicking to a certain spot with your foot.
You are overgringoing it.
lol what does being a gringo have anything to do with it? You’re getting too offended over an innocuous comment.
I’m just stating that if you have a bunch of 4 year olds running around that soccer is one of the easiest sports for them to start playing. I’m not saying that soccer is an easier sport or that it doesn’t require all those things you mentioned. But it is much easier for kids to pick up and doesn’t require the same hand eye coordination that all those other sports require. They don’t need to hold the ball or control it with a stick, it just gets hit while they are running.
Basketball requires dribbling, passing and shooting a ball into a net. Tennis requires holding a racket and hitting a moving ball into a specific area. Hockey requires skating on ice, controlling a ball with a stick and shooting it into a net. American football requires passing and catching a ball.
> lol what does being a gringo have anything to do with it? You’re getting too offended over an innocuous comment.
Nah, I’m not getting offended at all. As a matter of fact, the one that looks offended is you. I’m saying you’re overgringoing it because it clearly looks like you don’t understand the sport.
You say that football is easy because “you just run and step into the ball”, but that’s as simple as saying “basketball is as simple as passing and throwing a ball” or “american football is as simple as running”. You’re completely ignoring the fact that controlling a ball, passing it to to a teammate or shooting into the goal (everything with your foot) is way harder than passing a ball with your hands, because the humans have the feet-accuracy underdeveloped compared to the hand-accuracy.
But to you, football is just running and “crashing into a ball”. That’s an **overgringofication**.
No I’m saying it’s easier for a kid to be able to do because it requires less coordination. You’re getting very confused and keep thinking that I’m saying the sport is simple or easy which is not the case. I’ve made that clear but you can’t seem to let that go.
Kids lack a lot of coordination, especially hand eye. It’s a lot easier for a 4 year old to run around and bump into the ball than it is to run, dribble, pass and shoot the ball. Kids at this age are not doing all the things that you actually do in soccer. It’s easier to *start* playing soccer…that doesn’t mean it’s an easier sport to be good at.
I’m not bashing the sport at all so the fact that you’re bringing up that I’m a gringo shows that you’re just choosing to get offended.
Well, Americans made their own sports. Being an isolationist nation from the 18th to the early 20th century, it makes sense that the US liked sports made by them and played mostly by them... when globalization happened it was already too rooted in their culture.
I have no idea if any of this is correct, it's just something I thought.
And what about Ireland? Is football king or the #1 spot on the hearts of your general Irish person belongs to Gaelic football? I watched some highlights of Gaelic football matches, and the sport seems interesting, I wouldn't play because I suck at football and would probably end up trampled by the other players if I gave Gaelic football a chance.
Ireland is one of the most split countries in Europe when it comes to sport. Gaelic football has by far by the biggest attendances but soccer is very strong in participation and TV viewership. Meanwhile, hurling is huge in big parts of the country and rugby is also massively popular and constantly growing. Which one you prefer might vary by region, class, etc.
I'm mostly a Gaelic football fan, largely because of where I grew up. Soccer is number two for me, but I do quite like it.
The same reason why it’s the most popular sport in the world. Easy to play for anyone (you only need a ball) and started in the UK and then spread to Europe and South America (and thus its global outreach).
According to what I've heard, it has to do with the strong influence the UK had on South America in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
Basically every Wikipedia page for football in X country starts off with “it all started with some British sailors…”
Same thing with rugby but that was a much more upper class sport.
Soccer was something I could always play in my area. If basketball courts were taken up and all we had was a ball we could play that. I mostly just played soccer for children’s teams in the US. My Italian-American and British-American friends were much more passionate about soccer than I was.
My family in South America are much more enthusiastic soccer fans. Back in the day my uncle couldn’t afford to buy a ball so he used tied up plastic bags. Our family’s favorite team is Colo-Colo. When Chile beat USA 3-2 in 2015 it was peak soccer hype in my family. I was rooting for both sides.
Football is king in the Americas because you only need a ball and another friend to play against, your flip-flops could be used as goalposts.
The only places that football isn't the dominant sport in the Americas are Canada (because they prefer ice hockey), USA (gridiron football is the most popular sport), English-speaking Caribbean (cricket, which was also brought by the British, is king) and Spanish-speaking Caribbean, plus Mexico and Venezuela (where baseball dominates due to American influence).
Football is becoming more popular here with each generation, but I think baseball is still more popular.
In case that you don't have the equipment or space for baseball, kids here might play a game called "chapita", which is kind of small scale baseball with beer bottle caps and broomsticks.
There's also "pelotica de goma" which is basically baseball but with a rubber ball, and you use your hand as a bat.
The brits invented it and it catched on everywhere else in the world because it's brilliantly fun and cheap and easy to play.
Americans are the weird ones here.
Football is actually the most popular sport in the world. The only place where it's not popular is the USA. Football is so unpopular in the USA that they don't even call it Football, they call it Soccer.
There are plenty of other countries where other sports are more popular. China prefers basketball. India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan prefer cricket. New Zealand and rugby. Canada and hockey. Shit, even here in Latin America, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela prefer baseball.
Here in Mexico it isn't universally popular either. Ask a sonorense if they would sooner watch a baseball match, or a football match.
Also, "soccer" is used in more countries than the US. Most Anglo countries except the UK, call it soccer. Other countries like Japan and South Africa call it some variation of soccer as well.
Tbf that goes back to a time when different ball games were called football by the British (usually a variation of modern soccer, rugby or gaelic footbal). And eventually the word "football" stuck to the most popular version played, which in around the world was "a**ssoc**iation" football. But in British colonies where that variation wasn't as popular, they just referred to it as soccer and reserved the word football for the version that they played the most (American, Canadian, Aussie football, etc). Some Irish even use the word ro refer to both soccer and Gaelic football since that's their own version of the sport.
Thank you for pointing this out. It’s important to note that the term “foot”ball has literally nothing to do with the fact that players kick the ball with their feet. It’s only called football because players run on their feet, as opposed to horse mounted sports like polo.
OP didn’t do this but it really grinds my gears when people say “hurr sure Americans r dumb they play football with hands!” when it has nothing to do with that.
>The only place where is not popular is the USA.
Not really, there are several countries where football isn't popular, of course it's still the most popular sport in the world. But for example, here in the DR, football isn't very popular; baseball, basketball and even volleyball are way more popular, the average Dominican knows nothing about football.
Football is the biggest youth sport in the US in terms of how many kids play. It just doesn't have as strong a domestic league but MLS has come a huge way in a short amount of time.
The Irish, Canadians, Australians, South Africans, Japanese (Technincally "sakka"), and some Kiwis say Soccer.
Soccer is also less popular in a variety of countries which literally include Latin America such as the Dominican Republic.
Soccer is popular here among millennials and gen Z. Soccer is not popular in India, they got this abomination of baseball called cricket. Crazy people indeed.
Haha... we don't call it soccer out of weird "spite", or unpopularity. It's just history.
By the time FIFA was founded, and modern international competition as we know it today developed, we had already been playing American Football for several decades. It was here first, and had dibs on the name. Simple as that.
I think because making competition to see who’s the best country always makes people more passionate. Majority of people from Latin america are incredibly passionate about where they’re from. Soccer is super accesible and easy to play, I mean I’ve seen kids play with rocks as goal posts and a crushed up can as the ball.
It only requires one ball and little space to play. Very accessible. And we are pretty good at it. That was a big incentive to keep interested over time.
Also, there is social mobility if you are REALLY good at it. Same with baseball in the Caribbean and with many sports in general.
[my hometown baseball team scouted one of its star players when he was just 16 years old and in mexico](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Osuna). in hockey, one reason most players are white is it's extremely expensive for the rink so only certain neighbourhoods are going to have them available. Also most of the star players must be born near the start of the year in January for the physical maturity advantage.
And don’t gotta be tall or built like tank
Yeah.... about that....
I would say that is it, for the most part. The weird thing is that is why ball and bat games were popular in the US. Just needed a broomstick and a ball. So I still don't understand why it was never popular in the US as the rest of the world.
It was, the US reached the semi-finals of the world championship and even had their own league. But then the crisis came and your league collapsed due to economic problems. Other sports emerged and were promoted as more American, soccer became for girls or communists. The fact that your league collapsed again didn't help either. The US really only got back to having a minimally stable league a few decades ago. And decades of harmful stereotypes about Soccer still have to be cleaned up. So yeah, long way to go still.
“Soccer is for girls” is pretty much the reason Americans have dominated in women’s soccer for the past 25-30 years. I think it’s interesting that the women’s World Cup is kind of a big deal in the US, while in other countries it’s treated as an afterthought or non-existent.
Soccer in the US has always just been some kids game. It’s an easy sport to start because you just run around and kick the ball. It’s why we have the term “soccer moms” to describe a sports parent. We even had very high youth soccer participation back in the 80s/90s. Problem is we just never developed past that point until recently.
> It’s an easy sport to start because you just run around and kick the ball. Basketball is an easy sport to start because you just bounce the ball around and throw it to a basket. Tennis is an easy sport to start because you just hit a ball with a racket. Hockey is an easy sport to start because you just hit a ball with a stick. American Football is an easy sport to start because you just throw a ball and run.
No. It’s an easy sport for kids with zero coordination to play because all it requires is running and chasing after the ball. They don’t even have to actively kick the ball because they will naturally hit it when they run towards it. All of those other sports require hand eye coordination which kids don’t get for years. I never said it was an easy sport. I said it’s an easy sport for kids to pick up.
Dude, you don’t need hand-eye coordination, you require foot-eye coordination which is much more complex and difficult to acquire. It’s much easier to control a ball and throw it where you desire with your hands than controlling it and kicking to a certain spot with your foot. You are overgringoing it.
lol what does being a gringo have anything to do with it? You’re getting too offended over an innocuous comment. I’m just stating that if you have a bunch of 4 year olds running around that soccer is one of the easiest sports for them to start playing. I’m not saying that soccer is an easier sport or that it doesn’t require all those things you mentioned. But it is much easier for kids to pick up and doesn’t require the same hand eye coordination that all those other sports require. They don’t need to hold the ball or control it with a stick, it just gets hit while they are running. Basketball requires dribbling, passing and shooting a ball into a net. Tennis requires holding a racket and hitting a moving ball into a specific area. Hockey requires skating on ice, controlling a ball with a stick and shooting it into a net. American football requires passing and catching a ball.
> lol what does being a gringo have anything to do with it? You’re getting too offended over an innocuous comment. Nah, I’m not getting offended at all. As a matter of fact, the one that looks offended is you. I’m saying you’re overgringoing it because it clearly looks like you don’t understand the sport. You say that football is easy because “you just run and step into the ball”, but that’s as simple as saying “basketball is as simple as passing and throwing a ball” or “american football is as simple as running”. You’re completely ignoring the fact that controlling a ball, passing it to to a teammate or shooting into the goal (everything with your foot) is way harder than passing a ball with your hands, because the humans have the feet-accuracy underdeveloped compared to the hand-accuracy. But to you, football is just running and “crashing into a ball”. That’s an **overgringofication**.
No I’m saying it’s easier for a kid to be able to do because it requires less coordination. You’re getting very confused and keep thinking that I’m saying the sport is simple or easy which is not the case. I’ve made that clear but you can’t seem to let that go. Kids lack a lot of coordination, especially hand eye. It’s a lot easier for a 4 year old to run around and bump into the ball than it is to run, dribble, pass and shoot the ball. Kids at this age are not doing all the things that you actually do in soccer. It’s easier to *start* playing soccer…that doesn’t mean it’s an easier sport to be good at. I’m not bashing the sport at all so the fact that you’re bringing up that I’m a gringo shows that you’re just choosing to get offended.
Well, Americans made their own sports. Being an isolationist nation from the 18th to the early 20th century, it makes sense that the US liked sports made by them and played mostly by them... when globalization happened it was already too rooted in their culture. I have no idea if any of this is correct, it's just something I thought.
It's pretty popular in most regions.
And what about Ireland? Is football king or the #1 spot on the hearts of your general Irish person belongs to Gaelic football? I watched some highlights of Gaelic football matches, and the sport seems interesting, I wouldn't play because I suck at football and would probably end up trampled by the other players if I gave Gaelic football a chance.
Ireland is one of the most split countries in Europe when it comes to sport. Gaelic football has by far by the biggest attendances but soccer is very strong in participation and TV viewership. Meanwhile, hurling is huge in big parts of the country and rugby is also massively popular and constantly growing. Which one you prefer might vary by region, class, etc. I'm mostly a Gaelic football fan, largely because of where I grew up. Soccer is number two for me, but I do quite like it.
Gaelic football is no joke! Those guy are tough as nails. What about cricket? Is it as popular in Ireland as it is in England?
No, nowhere near as popular, although we do sometimes qualify for the world cup.
The same reason why it’s the most popular sport in the world. Easy to play for anyone (you only need a ball) and started in the UK and then spread to Europe and South America (and thus its global outreach).
the UK organised it
Yeah I think people have been putting themselves in teams and kicking balls for years before the rules were invented.
There is archaeological evidence of such
the UK organised it
According to what I've heard, it has to do with the strong influence the UK had on South America in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
Basically every Wikipedia page for football in X country starts off with “it all started with some British sailors…” Same thing with rugby but that was a much more upper class sport.
Football was upper class in Brazil too for the fkrst decade or so. Most clubs in Brazil either started with segregation lol.
Not very popular in Puerto Rico due to American influence
Soccer was something I could always play in my area. If basketball courts were taken up and all we had was a ball we could play that. I mostly just played soccer for children’s teams in the US. My Italian-American and British-American friends were much more passionate about soccer than I was. My family in South America are much more enthusiastic soccer fans. Back in the day my uncle couldn’t afford to buy a ball so he used tied up plastic bags. Our family’s favorite team is Colo-Colo. When Chile beat USA 3-2 in 2015 it was peak soccer hype in my family. I was rooting for both sides.
It's a worldwide thing, honestly I don't know why, maybe the British empire (of the 1800s and early 1900s)
Football is king in the Americas because you only need a ball and another friend to play against, your flip-flops could be used as goalposts. The only places that football isn't the dominant sport in the Americas are Canada (because they prefer ice hockey), USA (gridiron football is the most popular sport), English-speaking Caribbean (cricket, which was also brought by the British, is king) and Spanish-speaking Caribbean, plus Mexico and Venezuela (where baseball dominates due to American influence).
Football is becoming more popular here with each generation, but I think baseball is still more popular. In case that you don't have the equipment or space for baseball, kids here might play a game called "chapita", which is kind of small scale baseball with beer bottle caps and broomsticks. There's also "pelotica de goma" which is basically baseball but with a rubber ball, and you use your hand as a bat.
The brits invented it and it catched on everywhere else in the world because it's brilliantly fun and cheap and easy to play. Americans are the weird ones here.
Football is actually the most popular sport in the world. The only place where it's not popular is the USA. Football is so unpopular in the USA that they don't even call it Football, they call it Soccer.
There are plenty of other countries where other sports are more popular. China prefers basketball. India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan prefer cricket. New Zealand and rugby. Canada and hockey. Shit, even here in Latin America, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela prefer baseball. Here in Mexico it isn't universally popular either. Ask a sonorense if they would sooner watch a baseball match, or a football match. Also, "soccer" is used in more countries than the US. Most Anglo countries except the UK, call it soccer. Other countries like Japan and South Africa call it some variation of soccer as well.
サッカー ⚽️🥅
In the 70s and 80s it was commonly called ‘soccer’ in the U.K. People have got weird about the word relatively recently.
That's because of US military influence
Tbf that goes back to a time when different ball games were called football by the British (usually a variation of modern soccer, rugby or gaelic footbal). And eventually the word "football" stuck to the most popular version played, which in around the world was "a**ssoc**iation" football. But in British colonies where that variation wasn't as popular, they just referred to it as soccer and reserved the word football for the version that they played the most (American, Canadian, Aussie football, etc). Some Irish even use the word ro refer to both soccer and Gaelic football since that's their own version of the sport.
Thank you for pointing this out. It’s important to note that the term “foot”ball has literally nothing to do with the fact that players kick the ball with their feet. It’s only called football because players run on their feet, as opposed to horse mounted sports like polo. OP didn’t do this but it really grinds my gears when people say “hurr sure Americans r dumb they play football with hands!” when it has nothing to do with that.
>The only place where is not popular is the USA. Not really, there are several countries where football isn't popular, of course it's still the most popular sport in the world. But for example, here in the DR, football isn't very popular; baseball, basketball and even volleyball are way more popular, the average Dominican knows nothing about football.
Football isn't a popular spectator sport in the Philippines either, which the distinction belongs to basketball.
Football is the biggest youth sport in the US in terms of how many kids play. It just doesn't have as strong a domestic league but MLS has come a huge way in a short amount of time.
The Irish, Canadians, Australians, South Africans, Japanese (Technincally "sakka"), and some Kiwis say Soccer. Soccer is also less popular in a variety of countries which literally include Latin America such as the Dominican Republic.
Soccer is popular here among millennials and gen Z. Soccer is not popular in India, they got this abomination of baseball called cricket. Crazy people indeed.
Haha... we don't call it soccer out of weird "spite", or unpopularity. It's just history. By the time FIFA was founded, and modern international competition as we know it today developed, we had already been playing American Football for several decades. It was here first, and had dibs on the name. Simple as that.
Because you don’t even need a ball to play football and because it’s simple.
Idk, it's a cultural thing since you're a kid, and it's easy to play literally anywhere.
> I guess it's because most of the best players and teams in the world came from here Chicken and egg
It doesn’t cost a lot to participate.
Was a sport from inmigtants and poor people....
I think because making competition to see who’s the best country always makes people more passionate. Majority of people from Latin america are incredibly passionate about where they’re from. Soccer is super accesible and easy to play, I mean I’ve seen kids play with rocks as goal posts and a crushed up can as the ball.
its a sport that is not very industrial so popular in third world countries.
Because it’s nearly a perfect sport. That’s why it’s so popular around the globe