Is it called Soccer or Football?

As Dwayne "The Rock" says during his time in the WWE, "IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT IT IS!!" But let's be honest, is it called Soccer or Football?

As we are getting ready for the FIFA Men's World Cup in a few days time, there has been so much debate on what we called the sport and asked "Is it called Soccer or Football?"

To Americans, it's soccer. To most of the rest of the world, (including England, the birthplace of the modern sport,) it's football. But what most people don't know is that the word “soccer” is not in fact an American invention. On the contrary, it was an import from England, and one that was commonly used there until relatively recently.

The answer is quite clear as soccer and American football are two completely different games. That means when read this way, the original question doesn't actually make sense with football and soccer actually being the same thing. However, it does lead us on to another interesting question: Why do some countries call soccer "Football" and vice versa?

Football started sounding more logical as time progressed as it helped outline the main difference between rugby and soccer/football since the former was mainly passed by hand while the latter used the foot. Football became a term that’s more within the realms of simplicity in comparison with association football and is the most commonly used one today.

In the late 19th century, British students often used to shorten names and words, and so they set to work on Association football. It was first recorded in 1889 as socca and then socker before finding its current form in 1895. As for any differences in rules between soccer and (Association) football, the answer is that there are none.

For all the people upset that we call it "soccer", it was actually the British who coined the word. It was one of the first names for the sport which later became known as "football". "Football" is actually a general term for that type of sport, and covers soccer, rugby, and american football. In the US, we went back to calling it soccer in order to help differentiate between Football, Association Football, and Rugby Football, just becoming football, soccer, and rugby.

So there you have it! There's no need to debate this. If we call it soccer, it's soccer. If we call it football, it's football. Just simple as that.