I remember the first time I heard the term "soccer" used in an international context—it was during the 1994 World Cup hosted in the United States. As someone who's studied sports history for over two decades, I've always been fascinated by how this linguistic divergence between American and British English came to be. Many people assume Americans simply decided to be different, but the truth is far more complex and dates back to 19th-century England itself. The complete history reveals how class distinctions, immigration patterns, and sporting evolution all contributed to why Americans call it soccer while much of the world calls it football.
The story begins in England during the 1860s, when various forms of football were developing. Rugby football and association football were the two primary versions, with rugby allowing handling of the ball while association football prohibited it. Students at Oxford University, seeking to distinguish between the codes, began adding "-er" suffixes to abbreviations—a common practice at the time. Rugby became "rugger," and association football became "assoccer," which quickly shortened to "soccer." This terminology wasn't invented by Americans at all—it was born in the very heart of English academia. By the 1880s, both "soccer" and "football" were used interchangeably in England, with "soccer" considered the more formal term among the upper classes while "football" was preferred by the working classes.
When these sports crossed the Atlantic with immigrants in the late 19th century, America was already developing its own football codes. What Americans call football today—the gridiron sport with helmets and touchdowns—was evolving from rugby football through modifications introduced by Walter Camp at Yale University between 1880 and 1883. As American football gained popularity on college campuses, the term "football" became firmly associated with this new domestic sport. Association football needed a different name to avoid confusion, and "soccer"—the term brought over by British immigrants—naturally filled that role. Interestingly, historical records show that American newspapers used both terms until approximately the 1920s, when "soccer" became dominant. The American Soccer League, founded in 1921 with eight charter clubs, helped cement the terminology in the national consciousness.
The divergence became permanent after World War II, when football (what Americans call soccer) remained a minority sport in the U.S. while exploding in popularity elsewhere. I've always found it ironic that the term "soccer" fell out of favor in England just as it was becoming established in America. British historians note that usage of "soccer" declined dramatically in the UK after the 1970s, with only 22 documented uses in British newspapers in 1980 compared to over 800 in 1960. This timing coincides with football's growing association with working-class identity in England, making the upper-class term "soccer" increasingly unpopular.
What many people don't realize is that the United States isn't alone in using "soccer." Canada, Australia, South Africa, and Ireland also use the term to distinguish from their own football codes. In Australia, for instance, what Americans call soccer was known as soccer until 2005, when the governing body changed its name from Soccer Australia to Football Federation Australia. This reflects a global tension between national sporting traditions and international standardization. Personally, I think this linguistic diversity adds richness to global sports culture rather than representing American exceptionalism, as some critics claim.
The persistence of "soccer" in American English speaks to how language evolves differently across regions. As a sports historian, I've noticed that attempts to rebrand soccer as football in the U.S.—such as when the North American Soccer League briefly experimented with calling it "the football sport" in the 1970s—have consistently failed. The United States Soccer Federation, founded in 1913, has never seriously considered changing its name despite the global prevalence of "football." This isn't just stubbornness—it reflects practical linguistic reality in a country where "football" already refers to a massively popular established sport.
Looking at contemporary global sports culture, I believe the soccer/football distinction will likely persist indefinitely. Major League Soccer, established in 1993 with 10 teams and now expanded to 29 clubs, has firmly embedded "soccer" in the American sports lexicon. Meanwhile, international competitions like the World Cup have created a fascinating linguistic duality where Americans understand that "football" means soccer in global contexts while maintaining their domestic terminology. This isn't so different from how Australians call the sport "football" in international contexts while often using "soccer" domestically alongside Australian Rules Football.
The history of why Americans call it soccer reveals much about how language, sports, and national identity intersect. From its origins in 19th-century Oxford to its current usage by millions of American sports fans, the term represents a legitimate linguistic pathway rather than American rebellion against global norms. As global connectivity increases through tournaments like the World Cup—which attracted over 3.5 billion viewers in 2018—this linguistic difference becomes less a barrier and more a interesting footnote in sports history. Having studied this topic for years, I've come to appreciate that what we call the sport matters less than the passion it inspires across cultures and continents.