Ball Kicking: 5 Reasons Why Soccer is The Best Sport in The World

 Sports are a worldwide language, you don’t need almost anything to like a sport, follow it, and pick a team you will be sympathizing with. Although we all like different sports, soccer just has a certain special feel to it, and throughout history, it has been proven over and over to be close to what we could call “The Best Sport in The World”. Once you get started in liking soccer, you will never let go of it, you will get old and tell stories to your grandkids about how the best player in the world was— well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

Reason # 1: It is one of the oldest ones around

As history tells it, people have been playing games similar to soccer for a pretty long while, but the first mention of the word “Football” (yes, that’s its actual name) was in a Scottish statue, where it was being communicated to the population that the playing of this sport was being banned in all the land. It was the year 1424 when this happened, and King James I was ruling the parliament when they decided to ban soccer, and remind everybody that archery remained being the most playable sport at the time. This was not just because King James I was mad at soccer players for not letting him play, it was because of reasonable motives, like football being violent, unorganized, and attracted unwanted people to public places. What’re you going to do? Soccer is just so popular everybody wants to play it!

Reason # 2: Its massive popularity

Soccer has a huge amount of players all around the world (professional players, that is). They play almost in every country in the globe, and players all around the world just drive the masses crazy. According to the 2006 FIFA Big Count, the total amount of players in the world was reaching the impressive number of 265 million, reaching 270 million when including referees and match officials. Every single one of those players in the world has fans (them or their team), even if it is just their family, and with as many registered players as there are, it is only obvious to assume the number of fans is an even bigger number. If you’re looking to become a worldwide known athlete, your best bet is soccer, having more fans than any other sport in the face of the Earth. Everybody likes a good soccer game, they just love one with abundant goals, passes, and very good plays, and what we also love, is getting to be together one more time with our fellow fans and talk about, or support our team.

Reason # 3: It brings people together

That’s right folks, soccer is not just about the players, the coaches and the referees, it is about the fans, the people who travel miles and miles, who spend the money they had for their date to go watch, with their fellow fans, their favorite team playing a great game. There’s an interesting phenomenon with soccer, your two teams might be rivals, and you might have sworn not to get close to, or relate in some way to any fan of the other team, but as soon as the national team of your country plays, at least part of that hatred goes away, because now, you both want the same, and are pushing for the same feet to push the ball into the same goal. Soccer warms your heart and makes you forget your differences, kind of like Christmas, for normal people. Soccer could even make a war stop. Oh, you think I’m exaggerating it a bit? Well, not really, because this is exactly what happened in WWI, back in December 25^th 1914, when soldiers from both the German, and the British armies, warmed by the Christmas, and the soccer spirits, made a deal to turn the try-to-make-the-other-soldier-die-for-his-country mode (paraphrasing general Patton there) off for a couple of days. The story says the Germans started singing “Silent Night”, and when the British heard this, they joined them in singing. After this, they all proceeded to play a game of soccer there in the same place where, just hours ago, shots had been fired from side to side. Nobody complained about fouls or penalties, they just set their rifles, their helmets, and their willingness to fight aside, and played as if there was no war. That, friends, is the power of soccer, and if that does not make your eyes watery, you are just a Soccer Grinch or a hater.

Reason # 4: It used the name Soccer long before it was used for any other sport

Speaking of Soccer Grinches and haters, they will not like this but it is only the truth. Soccer was not always called soccer, but it was forced to adopt that name when less than a century ago, American Football started just being called Football. Football, on top of being a word used to describe soccer since long before American Football began to become popular, is more accurate to describe soccer than to describe American Football, because feet are used in at least 90% of the game, as opposed to American Football, where they are used in roughly 5/10% of the game. They could have named it something like American Handball, not so many people like handball anyways (they do, just not so much as soccer), or something like American Strategy Ball Game, or YardBall, which would have been more a descriptive name for such a sport (which by the way is a great sport, and I like too. No insult to American Football, its creators, or its fans intended). The truth is, people all around the world still call it Football, and it is because in many countries it is the most loved, or the official sport of the place. It is a great sport that can be played by people in all places, and good for all ages, especially for kids looking for a sport to practice professionally or on the side in the future.

Reason # 5: It is great for the new generations

There are a number of reasons why soccer can be great for kids and youths, however, many of these reasons are the same as in other sports, and it would not make a big difference mentioning them, but I will do my best to list the reasons that make soccer special.

Yes, soccer does make you fit, and it is a good exercise, but so are other sports, and in this area, swimming beats every other sport by much because you exercise every muscle in your body (or so my pediatrician used to say). However, what makes soccer such a great sport in the exercising area is that it teaches you techniques with your body that you won’t learn in any other sports, especially in your feet and legs. Since soccer is just a ball, and you controlling it, you have to move in ways you wouldn’t have to in other sports to outrun your rival. Also, soccer has no match in the creativity area, again since it is just you and the ball, you need to find creative ways to get the ball inside the goal and to prevent the other players from taking the ball from you while you are conducting it or passing it to a teammate. Soccer can also be great for when you need to learn a fun sport fast. Most other sports have a long set of rules you have to explain before the game begins, but with soccer, you pretty much just explain you have to score a goal, touching the ball with your feet only, and the rest you explain as the game develops. This ease to play the sport makes it much more fun for kids and young people who want to have a good time. You don’t need much to play it, it is basically just a ball, and two places which you will use as the goal lines, and you can just use rocks as the two sides of it. Kids and young people will enjoy this game very much.

So now you know it, soccer is the best sport in the world, and next time you want to try a new sport, or want to play something, pick soccer, you won’t regret it.