Thursday, September 29, 2016

Rugby, Football, Soccer

It started when a friend of my wife's from Italy came here for a visit who has now gone back to Italy said, "My girlfriend's husband plays football in Italy." I said, "No. Here in the U.S. we call Football, Soccer. Here football is like Rugby from England (which is true). Basically, the way I understand it Rugby came to the U.S. and Australia and other places from England. But the U.S. played it even rougher than other nations play it. So, in order for people to stop dying playing U.S. Rugby, they named it football and started wearing helmets so players stopped dying and being permanently injured so much. So, actually Rugby and American Football sort of started out as the same game originally. In somewhat the same way, Cricket evolved into the American Sport Baseball where we use a completely different bat and have more bases and different rules than Cricket. So, the Atlantic Ocean and no telephones, TV or internet or telegraph for 200 or 300 years caused all these changes to Cricket and Rugby, as well as the name change to soccer (from European Football).

But, here's the funny thing: What We call Soccer is actually called "Football" most other places except here in the U.S. So, the U.S. was another world so much that we became incredibly individualistic, especially after the Revolutionary war which was caused by "Crazy King George" of England who was completely nuts which caused mostly our revolutionary war. Maybe because deep into history princes and princesses who were brother and sister often married each other or cousins which made some people nuts genetically along the way until genetic scientists like doctors figured all this out eventually.

So, Soccer is called Football in the U.K. And Europe and most other places. The forerunner of what Americans call Football (with helmets and shoulder pads) likely came originally from Rugby but our rules changed a lot here. Soccer is what we call what Europeans call Football.

And there likely is even more to it than I'm saying here too:.

  1. Rugby football - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_football
    Rugby is a type of football developed at Rugby School in Rugby, Warwickshire, one of many versions of football played at English public schools in the 19th century ...
    1. Association football - Wikipedia, the free...

      en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_football
      Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, nicknamed The World Game or The Beautiful Game, is a team sport played between two ... 

      1. American football - Wikipedia, the free...

        en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_football
        American football, referred to as football in the United States and Canada, and also known as gridiron, is a sport played by two teams of eleven players on a ...


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