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The history of association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, stretches back to at least medieval times. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] FIFA cites Cuju in ancient China is the earliest form of a kicking game for which there is scientific evidence, a military manual from the Han dynasty , and it closely resembles modern association football.
Juventus becomes the first club in the history of European football to have won all three major confederation competitions after defeating Liverpool 1–0 in that match, as well as the first in association football history to have won all possible international competitions [8] [9] [10] after defeating Argentinos Juniors 6–4 (2–2 a.e.t.) in ...
A football or soccer ball is the ball used in the sport of association football. The ball's spherical shape, as well as its size, weight, mass, and material composition, are specified by Law 2 of the Laws of the Game maintained by the International Football Association Board . [ 1 ]
The World Cup has been held every four years since; [87] by 2019, it had expanded to 24 national teams, and 1.12 billion viewers watched the competition. [88] Four years later , FIFA targeted the 32-team 2023 Women's World Cup at an audience of 2 billion, [ 89 ] while about 1.4 million tickets were sold, setting a Women's World Cup record. [ 90 ]
American football, with 1.1 million high school football players and nearly 70,000 college football players, is the most popular sport in the United States, [140] [141] with the annual Super Bowl game accounting for nine of the top ten of the most watched broadcasts in U.S. television history. [142] The NFL has the highest average attendance ...
Female soccer players were being paid to play, which continues to be the case in the US in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), arguably the world’s most competitive women’s league.
The format of the competition has evolved substantially over the years, notably with the introduction of a Group Phase beginning in 1991, and multiple national representatives in 1998. The following summarises the evolution of the championship format through the years:
Despite soccer's relative lack of popularity in the host nation, the tournament was the most financially successful [28] [29] in World Cup history; it broke tournament records with overall attendance of 3,587,538 and an average of 68,991 per match, [30] marks that stood unbroken as of 2018 [31] despite the expansion of the competition from 24 ...