Throughout its history, football has been an immensely popular sport. It’s one of the most popular sports in the United States and has become a global phenomenon. It is played at all levels, from middle schools to professional leagues. The game also has a tournament, which determines who the national champions are.
The game has also become an Olympic event. The first international football tournament took place in 1883, featuring four national teams. This tournament helped create a national following. The game then expanded to other countries, including South America. In 1908, football made its Olympic debut in the London Games.
The game is played by two teams of 11 to 18 players, with the objective to move the ball from one end of the field to the other. Each team has a playbook, which contains dozens to hundreds of plays. Each play must be strategically sound and should carry a reasonable potential for yardage gain.
The offensive team tries to advance the ball into the opponent’s end zone. If the offensive team fails to advance the ball into the end zone, the defensive team can gain yardage by tackling the ballcarrier or forcing him to run out of bounds. This is known as a safety. The safety is worth two points, and the offensive team gets one point for a touchdown. It’s also possible to kick the ball over the crossbar and earn a touchdown.
The game is played on a gridiron, which is a rectangular field with a raised center line. Players are required to wear helmets and shin pads. A player can also have protective gear, including a mouth guard. A player can be ejected from the game for certain penalties, including blocking a player. Other penalties involve encroachment, which is when a player touches the opposing player before the ball is snapped. A player is also ejected if the ball hits a player’s head.
Some plays are very dangerous, and can be punished with penalties. For example, if the ball is dropped and the player fails to retrieve it, the offensive team is penalized with an encroachment. This is sometimes accompanied by a targeting penalty, where the offensive player hits a defenseless player. The ballcarrier can run with the ball, or he may hand the ball off to another player. The offensive team may also be penalized with a false start, where the offensive team moves before the ball is snapped.
The game is regulated by the Federation Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA. The organization has 211 national associations. All agents must be licensed and pass written examinations administered by national associations. The governing body has been steadily growing in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and it became an important global authority. It’s also responsible for regulating competition, including ensuring that players are in peak physical condition.
During the twentieth century, the game developed into a professional sport. Teams began to establish themselves in larger cities, and some clubs began paying their best players to join their teams. In the late nineteenth century, big matches were watched by up to 30,000 spectators. This increased in the twentieth century as industrialization and urbanization created larger groups of people meeting. The game became popular among workers.
