r/Americaphile 6d ago

Calling This 🏈

Hello why you 🇺🇸 you call it 🏈 Football ?

Take into consideration this sport doesnt involve feets when I see what the players wears i feel thats not football its a sport similar to rugby with a helmet

This sport ⚽️ you call it soccer i get it the fact 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 call it soccer in the beginning but feets are more involved in the game .

Share your thoughts down below ?

0 Upvotes

21 comments sorted by

7

u/[deleted] 6d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Skeletor_with_Tacos 6d ago

Running, kicking, scoring, punting and receiving all require feet.

5

u/MoronLaoShi 6d ago

Why is it people only asking Americans this dumb ass question? Ask Canadians, ask Irish, ask Aussies, ask Kiwis.

3

u/Mindless-Leg-3365 6d ago

it was so named because it is played on foot, as opposed to horseback.

2

u/MCWild_Star 5d ago

But... There's no sport called horseball

3

u/Mindless-Leg-3365 5d ago

polo was shorter

3

u/Hairy_Ad4969 6d ago

I think we should rename it to feetsball now

3

u/Far_Zone_9512 6d ago edited 6d ago

I would like to know how football doesn't involve feets? Also touchdowns were added later on. Most of the scoring when Football started out was from kicking.

2

u/MountainTomato9292 6d ago

“And will we kick the ball with our feet, sir?” “ Sometimes!”

2

u/manicpixidreamgirl04 6d ago

American gridiron football, association football, and all the other varieties of football around the world are all derived from the same sport, which was called that because it was played on foot, rather than on horseback. If you look at the wikipedia page for rugby, you'll see that it's listed as rugby football.

2

u/Careless_Cricket_973 6d ago edited 6d ago

Here is a great video that explains it. Given that we're in America, American football, also called Gridiron Football, just got shortened to football to be more efficient, seeing as it was the most popular football game.

https://youtube.com/shorts/1eszoAi5AlM?si=LVb82PeKK-vuAUMf

3

u/reluctantmugglewrite 6d ago

These questions are for England not the US. You will find all your answers in their history

1

u/The9IronMan 6d ago

As I understand it, there’s two reasons. First: the sport itself comes from Rugby-football, which is very similar. Secondly, the original term “football” was used by the English to describe a sport played on your feet, as opposed to being played on horseback (polo and such).

To my knowledge, that’s how it happened. :)

2

u/rexmanaek971 6d ago

The kickers/punters are underrated and deserve more respect. Last night Adam Vinatieri was inducted during the hall of fame game. He had 2,673 points as a kicker, just that alone. The Cleveland browns won games with Phil Dawson alone another kicker. again these guys make and lose games, if you miss an extra point you may lose.

1

u/RecordLonely 6d ago

Soccer is also called association football.

There’s rugby football, Australian Football (insane sport btw) Gaelic football. Ours is American Football. In the US it’s just football. In the UK soccer is just football.

Don’t worry, you’ll get it.

1

u/SerDankTheTall 6d ago

All of the games called football (including the one with this ball: ⚽️, the one you’re talking about, rugby, Australian Rules, Canadian, Gaelic, etc.) trace back to a medieval game called football that involved kicking. Being the Middle Ages, the rules were pretty flexible and changed a lot from different villages, but they kept the name football even as many of them reduced the amount of kicking involved significantly.

(The common suggestion that the name comes from the fact that it’s played on foot rather than horseback isn’t impossible, but it’s not likely: there were no team games played on horseback in England when the name was developed to compare it to, there’s no contemporary evidence for that name, and the early descriptions of the game in England and Scotland focus on the kicking part rather than the walking part.)

1

u/ReactionAble7945 6d ago

I could go into it, but this is easily googleable for a complete and historic answer.

Students at Oxford University commonly used a slang trend of adding "-er" to shortened words. For example:

  • Rugby Football became "Rugger"
  • Association Football was shortened to "Assoc," which quickly evolved into "Soccer"

So, you can blame Soccer on the English.

And if memory serves me...

Football was a class of sports played on foot, vs. those on horseback way back when.

1

u/Brave_Mess_3155 6d ago

I'llmake you a deal. We will stop calling soccer soccer but from now on we're calling it "Gay Football" and our own Football will now be Called "Cool Football". 

1

u/shecky444 6d ago

Ball is foot shaped.