Following the World Cup, questions have been raised about why the European game of football is called soccer in the United States, despite being the same game. 

Football, as called in Europe, dates back 2,000 years when it was said to have been played in ancient China, Greece and Rome. In those medieval times, the ball was typically made of rock or animal hide stuffed with hair. This game evolved into what is known today in England around the turn of the 19th century. 

The first football association was created in England in 1863, when the rules of the game became standardized for large groups. These include a set weight for the ball and which parts of the body were restricted to touch the ball during a game. Touching the ball with one’s hands was forbidden in these new rules, and thus rugby was created to include the rules outlawed by football. 

Once larger groups started playing football more often, England named the game “association football” because it was played in organized groups, or associations. 

The popularity of football quickly grew and spread throughout Europe. Public games were created so viewers could watch and leagues were formed to allow people of all ages to play with each other. Professional leagues were created in the late 1940s, with the English Football League being the first. The German Football League followed years later. 

Immigrants from Europe brought football to the U.S. in the early 1900s, but there was confusion between the two games of American football and Europe’s “association football.” This resulted in a new term, soccer, used to describe association football, and american football was shortened to just football. 

Two professional American leagues for soccer were started in 1967, the United Soccer Association and the National Professional Soccer League, which merged in 1968 to form the North American Soccer League. Soccer grew in the U.S. as they hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1994 and pledged to create a professional outdoor soccer league, later named Major League Soccer in 1996. 

People from the Pascack Hills community voted on which name they think the sport should be called in the U.S. From the respondents, 66.7% said that they think the sport should still be called soccer, opposed to the 33.3% that think the name should be changed to football. 

Although soccer in America and soccer in Europe have separate names, the sport is able to be played across the globe at a professional level.