Fun:Football
From RationalWiki
Various sports played on large fields wherein kicking a ball is, more or less, an integral part of the game, are called football. Among the various types of football are:
- Association football, the game which is played with one's foot, and a ball. Known to Americans (and some Canadians) as soccer (a term originating in english public school slang, as with rugger) (an abbreviation of asSOCiation, with an -er tacked on), but virtually everybody else calls it football. Or fútbol. Or Fußball. Or futébol. Or fotboll. Or voetbal. Or . . . calcio in Italy, and sakkaa in Japan. The proper term is "association football." In this game, each team has eleven players, only one of whom may touch the ball with his/her hands. Association football is a "contact sport," especially in Leeds.
- Rugby, which is similar to association football, except the ball is pointy and you can pick it up and run with it, and you can dogpile on top of the ballcarrier if you catch him/her. Rugby league has players on each side, while rugby union has fifteen. Rugby is classified as a "full contact sport."
- American football, which is like a boring, pussified rugby on steroids (literally). Each team fields eleven offensive players, eleven defensive people -- and the only two players who are allowed to kick the ball are on a third category called "special teams."
- Canadian football: Another rugby offshoot, similar to the American game except that field is 30 feet (9.1 m) longer, 35 feet (10.7 m) wider, and the end zones (goal areas) are 30 feet deeper. And there's something called a "rouge". And there are twelve players on each side. Unlike the American game, you only get 3 downs to advance the ball 10 yards, so said kickers are used more often. Unlike the American game, when a Canadian game is televised, there are no "TV timeouts" where every timeout runs several minutes so that broadcasters can insert a half-dozen commercials for clean coal, investment firms and defense contractors. American and Canadian football are both "collision sports."
- Australian football, called "footie" by its fans, is somewhere between association football and rugby. Eighteen players (plus four substitutes) play on a cricket oval with two goalposts flanked by two "behind posts" on each end. Players run with the ball and can pass it to teammates by bumping it with their fist (called "handball"). Scoring is achieved by kicking the ball between the goal posts: A goal (six points) are awarded for kicking the ball between the two center goalposts; a "behind" (one point) is awarded for kicking the ball between one of the goalposts and one of the behind posts. Like association football, this is a contact sport.