9781422278307

The sport known as football around the world is called soccer in the United States (and in a small handful of other countries, such as Australia, Canada, and Ireland). The actual full name of the sport is association football, derived from the Football Association (FA), which was founded in London in 1863. The FA established common rules for the sport, and future matches played using these were said to be played under “association rules.” The term “soccer” comes from the third through fifth letters of “association.” The name was shortened simply to football in England before it spread to the rest of the world, but in America, soccer eventually became the preferred term for association football. Versions of the sport existed in America before association rules. It was popular at universities but rules varied from school to school, and the schools did not A HISTORY OF THE US NATIONAL TEAM

compete against each other. After 1865, colleges began adopting association rules for the sport, and in 1876 Rutgers and Princeton played the first intercollegiate match in the United States, won 6–4 by Rutgers. Soccer thrived in the latter part of the nineteenth century as the country swelled with immigrants from the United Kingdom—from the already heavily populated eastern cities through the Midwest and eventually all the way to

These Canadian players, along with those in places like Australia and Ireland, are from one of the few countries to call the sport soccer

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