Which One Is The Real Football? American Football Or Soccer (A Sport in Which You Mainly Use Your Feet) ?

Why do Americans call their sport football if you use your hands to play and change the name of football to soccer (a sport in which you mainly use your feet)?

When I look at the main question in this article as the World Cup Soccer is still ongoing, I think about the ways both “American football” and “football” (or “soccer”) games are executed. I guess, there must be some aspects why the U.S. people are referring to the sport as “football” when the players use their hands most of the time, and changing the term “football” to “soccer”.

Now, I will guide you to how the gameplays of American football are generally conducted. Once you understand how the game works in general, you will understand the parts of the football game that uses the players’ hands or feet.

Which of the American football aspects do the players use their hands and feet?

It’s no secret that American football players use their hands in most parts of the gameplay regardless of the online or offline nature of the game. The dimension a.k.a the combination of the roundness and thickness of the ball that players use in American football games is more suitable to be brought using the hands.

We can even witness the players passing and hugging the ball while they play American football games in both the online and the offline versions. However, there are parts of the game where players can use their feet and still get points for doing so.

Tackles are the defensive moves from American football players to prevent offensive players from getting more points. The defensive players can use their feet while keeping them safe from the referee’s violation counts.

At some points, the players can even use their feet to score goals to their opponent’s goalposts. Even though such things are rare (because the players use their hands most of the time), such things exist as football tricks that players have performed differently through different eras.

Safety: Both contact sports need professional mouth guards to prevent losing teeth or even worse like concussion. Football players can go with football lip guard mouthpiece (lip protector), or strapped mouth guards while soccer players wear strapless mouth guards.

The history of “the Association” of “American football”

Previously, I’ve made it clear to you that there are aspects of American football where the players use their feet instead of their hands. By now, you’ve understood that the term “football” exists.

However, here, I would like to disclose another important part of where the term comes from. That one crucial part is the history of each term: American football and soccer. When I searched for the meaning of American football (instead of “handball” – the ways players are “supposed” to handle the ball most of the time), I got to a point that the American football gameplays as we know today originated from rugby.

The “Association Football” was the codification that people made before we knew rugby and American football the ways we know them now. Unfortunately, most people were dissatisfied that way, and rugby itself became a weird sport that uses players’ hands and feet proportionally. So, these dissatisfied people ended up inventing the Rugby Football Union.

There, people knew the term “football” for American football. Later on, people added the “American” part to clarify and differentiate the football rules, because the general football game was too abstract back then. Hence, we also know Canadian, Australian, or any other country-related football games up until now.

Soccer vs Football

I’ve described where the term “football” originated in the previous sections of the article. Now, I invite you to delve deeper into the ways Americans refer to football games as soccer.

Let me tell you: Both terms have the same meaning, which involves the players using their feet to handle and kick the ball and to score goals to the opponent’s goalpost. The ball that players use in these types of football (or soccer, according to Americans today) is not the same as the ball used for American football in terms of colors, patterns, and dimensions.

Generally, “soccer” is slang that North Americans often think about. Now, North Americans are people whom foreigners tend to associate with the word “Americans”, even though South American people also exist. Hence, it also answers part of the question that stated, “Why do Americans … change the name of football to soccer?”

By being slang that (North) Americans use, “soccer” also becomes a term that differentiates from the “football” term that the U.K. people continue to use up until now. The term “soccer” itself has been out of use in the U.K. since the mid-20th century, and they never inform Americans about their language.

Now that you’ve understood the gameplays and the histories behind the “why” question, I conclude that Americans refer to sports the way they are because of the historical things, linguistic aspects, and the ways the players play American football games.

American football was previously rugby, and people from the Association clarified the rules back then. Plus, American football today still uses the players’ feet in some aspects of the games. As for football versus soccer, it’s all a matter of language.