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by Maurice Sassoon

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Unlike football that is nationally played in the United States, soccer is a form of football that is played in most countries. It is presently being popularized in the U.S. and is fast becoming a progressive outdoor game. Among other sports, soccer is played in many schools and colleges in the United States and Canada. The British people call this sport as a game of Association Football.

There is no carrying or throwing of the ball as there is in American football or the Rugby football played in England. Besides kicking, a player may also hit the ball with his knee, or butt it with his head, but, by no means, touch the ball with his hands. The ball is round, more like a basket ball than an American football. The field where soccer is played is generally one hundred to one hundred and thirty yards long and fifty to one hundred yards wide. There are eleven men on each team and like American football, there are goalposts at each end of the field. The only player that is permitted to use his hands is the goalkeeper. Penalties are free kicks at the opposing goal.

Soccer players must be adept at dribbling the ball in an attempt to direct it toward the goalpost. There are many professional and amateur teams, much like baseball and American football. On many occasions, professional soccer players have been involved in riotous matches
in which spectators have engaged in violence. Emotions run high in the event one team loses to another, particularly when a famous team belonging to one country compete with that of another country.

In a sense, watching soccer players control the ball without using their hands, is witnessing poetry in motion. There are certain strategies that are employed in order to confuse opponents. Speed and tactics are essential, being two of the most important requirements on which a soccer coach must insist while in training. Focus and concentration are necessary, together with stamina and a positive attitude, similar to American football and basket ball.

Soccer goalkeepers must be well-focused on the ball, their role being indispensable. They are full of expectation as to whether the ball that is being dribbled might be kicked towards them at any moment.

It would not be long before the game of soccer would be classified as one of the most recognized sports in the United States and in a similar category as American football,
baseball and basket ball.

Learn more about this author, Maurice Sassoon.

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