Talk:Association football

Most successful team in the world

The article says that Rangers are the most successful team in the world. I think that this is a claim which is hard to back up. They have won mire top league titles in their own country than anyone else, but I do not think that this is a good way of working out who is the most successful because not all countries have a league that is as hard as the others. Performance in continental and worldwide club competitions would be a better way of doing it. It would also give answers closer to what most fans consider the best team in the world. Also, I do not think that there is any one "best" team in the world.

For example, Real Madrid have been European champions 9 times, Milan 7 times, Liverpool 5 times, and Bayern, Ajax and Barcelona 4 times each. Independiente, Boca, Penarol and Estudiantes have been the most successful in South America.

Where's the goalie

Silly but if you didn't know football you might wonder where the goalie was if it wasn't on the field. 10 play all over the field but one generally plays only near his goalmouth? --BozMo (talk)22:34, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Sometimes called soccer and usually just called football

Perhaps we could have something closer to the truth here. In English it is usually called "football" by people from the British Isles & "soccer" by everyone else. Jimp 04:36, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

There being no argument as yet, I'm editing the page. Jimp 07:26, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

User:81.79.97.139 changed

"In Great Britain and Ireland it is usually called football. In other English-speaking countries it is usually called soccer."

to

"In most places across the world it is called football. In North America it is usually called soccer."

I have reverted this edit on two grounds.

1. The word football is English. English is widely spoken, yes, however, it is not spoken in most places across the world.
2. The use of the term soccer it mean association football in not restricted to North America. This is the usual term in Australian and New Zealand English.

If we want to be more specific and note that in most other languages a cognate of the word football is used to refer to the sport, I'd be all for it (provided we can back the statement up with references).

Also, I guess we could be a bit more specific when it comes to the use of the term in English. It would seem that it's also football in the English-speaking Caribbean.

Let information be added, not taken away. Jimp 06:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I think a combination of #1 and the part on cognates of the term may make the revision that was reverted a little more valid. Yes, English is not spoken in most parts of the world, but for most of the world, when they say "[whatever the term for the game is in their language]" then they are referring to the same concept defined in English (UK/Ireland english) as football. While they are not using the word, it is the concept that the term they are using translates to in much the same way that US/Canadian and it seems NZ/Au english uses the term Soccer to mean football. As such, Football is the central english term for the concept and soccer would be a translation of the term in the same way that Fútbol, Fußball, Calcio, and Piłka nożna are translation for other languages.

Of course then you could also argue that "Football" is just the British/Irish translation of "Association football" but that could be argued against based on the fact that it is just a shorting of the full name and not an actual translation.

I think I am starting to confuse myself here.. -- Creol(talk) 07:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you are confusing yourself ... dunno. I'm a little confused too. But I would dispute the idea that there exists a "central English term for the concept". What would "central English term" mean?

Things have different names in different dialects. What I call an eggplant an Englishman might call an aubergine. What I call tomato sauce an American might call ketchup. I wouldn't say one of these is the central term and the other a translation.

Equally, one can argue that soccer is a shortening of Association football. Since, soccer is an English word, no less than football is, I don't see how one could call it a translation.

Anyhow, I'm all for adding the detail about how wide-spread the use of cognates of the word football is in other languages. But let's be clear that using a cognate of the word is not the same as using the word. The Spanish don't call it football they call it futbalo. Jimp 08:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Simple English Wikipedia says though, "Welcome to the Simple English Wikipedia, an easy-to-read online encyclopedia for people who are learning English." Surely, for those learning English, a word derived from the same root as that in their own language would be easier for them to understand, not a different shortening of a longer phrase. Also, using an example such as Aluminium. It has the alternate form Aluminum (a redirect), which is sometimes used worldwide (as with soccer), but common usage mainly in North America. In that article, after Aluminum gets its mention as a variation in the first line, the internationally accepted Aluminium is used throughout the rest of the article. As the article title here is given Football (soccer), and not Soccer (football), and also, it would surely have to be assumed that it was known as "football" before "association football" (as in before the laws of the game were officially set down by the Football Association) wouldn't it make more sense to mention the use of Soccer, and a generalised where, in the first line, and then use Football throughout the rest (or if necessary to avoid dispute, Association Football), as with Aluminium. Also, in French and English, the acronym FIFA (the world body) has one F meaning Football, there isn't even an S for Soccer; the same is true of UEFA. Also, if you lo- I won't go on listing more, but I'm sure I could find many more reasons (such as the discussion on the English Wikipedia Football talk page, en:Talk:Football (soccer)#top of talk page banner, which whilst maybe not suitable to use as guideline here, still provides good examples (some more buried than others) of why Football ought to be used) to use football throughout, rather than soccer, or a combination of both.
I believe it's common courtesy to allow time for discussion before changes are made, but unless there is something that significantly causes me to doubt this, I will change any soccer to football (excluding an introduction comment), which (perhaps more importantly than anything mentioned so far) will make it consistent throughout. Sorry I went on a bit. --81.129.213.167 17:53, 23 February 2007 (UTC).

For those learning English, "a word derived from the same root as that in their own language would be easier for them to understand," surely, yes, in Japanese it's "サッカー" ("sakkaa"). Ease of understanding is one thing but then consider what the ESL student is being taught. They're more likely to be taught the the English word for soccer is soccer ... but this aside ...

You propose using football rather than soccer throughout the article. The word soccer appears four times.

1. It appears in the title. I believe it should remain in the title unless we are to move the article to Association Football (not a bad idea in my view but a different issue).
2. It appears in the note at the top which discusses the various names of the sport. Obviously we're not going to change this as you agree.
3. It appears in the See also section as a link to the article List of United States soccer teams. Since this is part of the title of that article I don't see any reason to have this changed. (Any discussion of changing the name of that article would belong on its' talk page.)
4. It also appears in the caption under the picture. If you want to change this to football, go right ahead. Seeing as elsewhere throughout the article the term used is football this shouldn't be a problem. Even I, who alway call soccer soccer, will recognise soccer as a code of football and therefore must agree that Switzerland and Albania are playing football.

What I'm arguing about, though, is how to phrase the note at the top about the use of the two terms. That soccer is sometimes called soccer and usually just called football besides being not very descriptive is simply not true. So I changed it.

It was changed again to "In most places across the world it is called football. In North America it is usually called soccer." This is not true either. It's also misleading. So I changed it again.Jimp 09:29, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I'll have to admit, by some error of my own (probably ctrl-f-ed another page, but eh), I rather overestimated the number of soccers in the article. However, if there's no disagreement, I will change the, err, one soccer there, under the picture, to football. And yeah, I'd agree on the List of US soccer teams remaining as that. I won't change it yet though, may as well discuss any suggestions on how to mention soccer as an alternative use that won't attract "outrage" from certain IPs, and change both (if there's an agreement) at the same time. To me, the main thing I notice that may be an issue is just that it seems to call North American and Oceanic countries "most other English speaking countries" without mentioning (as I think you said above) that this refers to "other countries with most of the native and first language-English speaking people". Now, I'm not saying this should be added; it would be rather over the top. But there are other countries such as India and South Africa, where the official first language isn't English, but it is still an official language, and one hell of a lot of people there do or can speak it, and may even learn it dually along with their native language from birth. Whenever I've met people from these countries (among others) on the internet, whenever football has been brought up, it usually would've been as football, not soccer, and the same with possibly one or two people in real life I know from those countries. To me, this is representative, as I have nothing else to base my opinion on. Similar applies to other European countries, whenever I've visited, I've heard football, not soccer. FIFA itself uses football in the very significant majority: I'll come back to this later. However, looking from the other way, I'd have to admit, that in the British media, soccer is used. Outside of the papers I usually read, I couldn't comment on it's frequency, but in the ones I do, it's probably a ratio of about 4:1, Football:Soccer.
I said I'd come back to FIFA, and that's because it's my opinion that maybe it could be used as the example. Something such as "FIFA (the world governing body) calls the sport football, but in most countries, soccer is an acceptable, alternative. Both are commonly used.", with any words considered complicated (I wouldn't know, they're all simple to me, but may not be to others) substituted with a better one. This solves the issue of mentioning geographical location, and acknowledges that both are used regularly, depending on where you are, and based to a fairly large extent on personal preference, as I think we both demonstrate. Any issues with that, or other suggestions? --86.130.34.210 21:01, 28 February 2007 (UTC).

I agree; only in the United States, is it called soccer beacause it has another sport called football, but in the rest of the world, it's called football. 24.1.4.241 (talk) 23:30, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Nope, "soccer" is a common word in many countries such as Ireland (because of Gaelic football, Canada (because of Canadian football, Australia, New Zealand etc. In fact of all big countries where English is the most commonly spoken language (OK, Ireland has the Irish language, Canada has the French language et cetera but English is most common) Britain seems to be the only one where "soccer" is not a common word for the game. See en:Names for association football, en:Football (word) 78.152.248.201 (talk) 15:00, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Request to move page to "Soccer"

Because non-English speakers don't know what Association Football is.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Reggin Spelt Backwards (talk • contribs) 07:55, 16 April 2022 (UTC)