The document summarizes the history and development of soccer/football. It originated thousands of years ago in China and other ancient cultures who played early forms of ball games. Modern soccer began taking shape in 19th century England, with standardized rules being created in 1863. After being popularized worldwide in the 20th century, soccer has grown to be the most popular sport globally with hundreds of millions of players and fans. Professional men's and women's leagues now operate in countries like the United States.

1. Soccer/football By: Hope Butler

2. History of Soccer The origin of football / soccer. The Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Ancient Greek, Persian, Viking, and many more played a ball game long before our era. The Chinese played "football" games date as far back as 3000 years ago. The Ancient Greeks and the Roman used football games to sharpen warriors for battle. In south and Central America a game called "Tlatchi" once flourished. But it was in England that soccer / football really began to take shape. It all started in 1863. In South America, cow bladders, stitched cloth, and human heads were used as balls

3. Soccer on north America After hosting an entertaining World Cup finals in 1994, the United States possessed some 16 million football players nationwide, up to 40 percent of whom were female. In 1996 a new attempt at establishing a professional outdoor league was made. Major League Soccer (MLS) was being played in only 10 U.S. cities, with greater emphasis on local players United States hosted and won the Women’s World Cup finals in 1999. The success of the MLS and the Women’s World Cup led to the creation of a women’s professional league in 2001. The Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) began with eight teams and featured the world’s star player, Mia Hamm , but it disbanded in 2003.

4. Other Information Football is the world’s most popular ball game in numbers of participants and spectators . 21st century there were approximately 250 million football players and over 1.3 billion people “interested” in football; in 2002 a combined television audience of more than 28 billion watched football’s premier tournament, the quadrennial month-long World Cup finals . Soccer fields are called pitches football was taken up as a winter game between residence houses at public schools such as Winchester, Charterhouse, and Eton. Each school had its own rules; some allowed limited handling of the ball and others did not.

5. credits http://www.all-soccer-info.com/ http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/550852/football/242671/South-America Kiki Paulsen