Between “Football” and “Soccer”.. What is the secret of the different name for football in these countries? | sports

Football is the most popular sport around the world, with millions following it with great passion, but this game has different names, especially in two of the countries participating in hosting the 2026 World Cup.

In the United States and Canada, the game is referred to as “soccer,” which raises questions about the origins of this name, and whether it raises the ire of countries that consider “soccer” to be an exclusive name for the game.

Speaking to the BBC, Stefan Szymanski, professor emeritus at the University of Michigan, recalls memories of his childhood in England during the sixties and seventies of the last century, stressing that the word “soccer” was at that time an accepted part of the everyday linguistic dictionary.

Szymanski expresses his astonishment at the current controversy, saying: “When I started investigating the matter with my friends about whether this word had been problematic in the past, the consensus among them was that the use of the term (Succre) in the 1970s did not raise any ire or objection.”

This curiosity led Szymanski to delve into the depths of sporting history, arriving at the conclusion that football in its early inception was associated with the elite class, noting that “the founders of the Football Association in England in 1863 were graduates of the University of Oxford who belonged to elite public schools.”

John M. confirms Cunningham, in the Encyclopedia Britannica, stated that the game whose rules were drawn up under the umbrella of the association was called “association football”; This is for the purely methodological purpose of distinguishing it from the sport of “rugby,” which was then known as “rugby football.”

From Oxford to the stadiums

The 1880s and 1890s witnessed the emergence of a linguistic phenomenon among wealthy university students in England, which was the shortening of words and adding the “-r” syllable to the end to generate slang.

“They shortened the word ‘breakfast’ to ‘breaker,’ and by the same logic they called rugby ‘rocker,'” Szymanski explained.

Regarding how “Sucre” was born, Szymanski presents a theory surrounded by scientific caution. He believes that the innovative students took the syllable “suk” from the word “association” and appended to it “-r” to form the word “sucre.”

He stressed: “No one has conclusive evidence, but what is historically proven is that Oxford is the cradle of this term, and there are many documentary sources that confirm that students there were the ones who coined it.”

The migration of the term and its roots

On a related note, sports historian Andy Mitchell observed “at least three examples” of the use of the words “soccer” or “soccer” in school magazines dating back to late 1885 in various parts of England.

“My hunch is that the two words were in circulation orally, and appeared in publications before 1885 in other publications that have not yet been found,” Mitchell wrote in his blog, Scottish Sports History.

Over time, the form of “Sucre” (with a different spelling) faded away and the word settled into its current form.

As the game spread globally, the term moved with it, becoming part of the sporting dialect in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada.

In contrast, the term “soccer” was reserved in the United States to describe the local sport (American football).

Szymanski comments on this historical connection by saying: “The American version evolved from rugby, but its elements intersect with soccer (soccer), and they are more like ‘cousins’, so American soccer gained its popularity in the same time period in which the word ‘soccer’ was coined.”

Although the British press tends to use “soccer,” Szymanski and his colleague Silk-Maria Weinecke’s analysis demonstrated that British newspapers continued to use “soccer” until the 1980s, before “soccer” became the dominant term.

Szymanski concludes by highlighting this problem in his university lectures: “Americans often apologize when they use the word ‘soccer’, saying: ‘Sorry, I mean soccer,’ thinking that the British are trolling for this term. Although I respect this kindness in the apology, I always assure them: It is an English word, so do not feel embarrassed in using it.”