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On thing that makes association football popular is that it can be played with relatively little equipment, in almost any place.

You basically just need a ball. You can mark goals with some jumpers, stones, chalk or whatever, and you can play in a field, a park, a street or a backyard. You can play with 2, 5, 10 or 20 players.

By comparison, it's hard to play sports like tennis, golf, pool, hockey etc without more equipment and a dedicated playing area.

It's therefore easy for kids to play and learn

In part by chance, of course. For some reason other European countries took to soccer more than to cricket or rugby, for example, even though they are all British sports. So while rugby and cricket are popular in Commonwealth nations, soccer spread throughout Europe and then to present or former European colonies.

Perhaps it’s because all you really need to play soccer is a ball. Perhaps it’s because you can play soccer with relativity few people. Perhaps it’s because it was considered a working class sport. But for whatever reason, it was embraced both inside and outside the British Empire, giving soccer broader appeal than cricket or rugby.

The barrier to entry for kids is “have a ball and some space to kick it around”.

In terms of participation you don’t need a full field, you don’t need grass, you don’t need special shoes, armor, uniforms, gymnasiums, an indoor space, etc etc. You don’t even need a goal - a couple of bags to mark the goal is fine. Kids don’t even need any particular supervision due to low contact nature, and versions of it can be played with almost any number of people and in parallel with other activities.

Compare to, say, baseball where you need at a minimum a diamond, enough clear space for the ball to reasonably fly and a minimum of 7 fielders along with other equipment. Or rowing where you need a boat, boathouse, river, and a whole team to turn up, or American football where you can kinda play but almost all variants require a fair number of people each time and a marked field of some description, or ice hockey where you need sticks, skates, and a fucking ice rink.

Adding: Association Football has heavily embraced an actual league system with promotions and relegations, and the league tiers extend all the way down to random pub and village teams. This enables widespread active participation in the sport at every ability level with a continuous line from playing on some local social team to the premiership football players at the top of the sport, providing a level of connection between fans and pro players that helps drive fan engagement.

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I do not quite agree with you about baseball. You do not need a full diamond, especially with kids who can not throw far, hit far or run far. The space needed for a variant of baseball suitable for kids is roughly the size of a small football pitch, and the amount of players the same as well. Rowing as well seams quite expensive and complex nowadays but were very accessible when waterways were a major form of transport. And still today there are places where a rowing boat is just as versatile as a car and therefore just as common. American football can also be played by kids very easy. You do not need a full team and it can be played in a smaller format with say 8 kids and just a ball. Granted it can not be played on pavement or gravel like soccer though.

I hear people all over the world use the term association football when there is a need to specify which form of football and do not want to sound like an American.

It’s cheap to play… just need a ball to kick and an open space. So even in poor regions, it’s a sport kids can play.

Are there different kinds of soccer or do you mean separating “American football” from “European kickball?”

You mean "American handegg" to differentiate it from "Commonwealth handegg" and "global kickball"

In the us, at least, soccer is popular among some demographics also because, unlike basketball, where height is important, or handegg, where weight is important, soccer is pretty agnostic about body types. Makes for more enjoyable competitions.

Ah, thank you, gentleman scholar

One thing is that it's dirt cheap to play. All you need is a ball and something to mark out goals, which can be just a few sticks.

Even then, it's not the most popular in every nation. America, Canada, and Australian football are more popular in their respective countries, and I believe Cricket's more popular in India.

>baseball where you need at a minimum a diamond, enough clear space for the ball to reasonably fly and a minimum of 7 fielders along with other equipment

While baseball is more difficult, you don't need the full complement to play. You need a bat and a ball and an open field, anything can be used to mark the bases. Gloves definitely help, but i have played without them. And you don't need a whole team. We've played with 4 to a side before. It's just better with the full teams of 9 to a side.

How does 4 a side baseball work? Pitcher, catcher, first base and one kid covering the rest of the field?

Do away with the catcher. Use a building/fence as a backstop, and the batter throws the ball back to the pitcher. A couple of people in the outfield and an infielder.

It's not like there would ever be based loaded and no stealing. So there's not really a need for everyone covering a base.

There are other football codes - Australian rules is hugely popular ( and worth watching), American, rugby union and rugby league.

Using the proper name avoids ambiguity and in this context is helpful.

There is Rugby football, Gaelic football, Australian football, Gridiron football, etc.

> And still today there are places where a rowing boat is just as versatile as a car and therefore just as common.

I’m kinda skeptical of that and would be interested to know where this is, however assuming this is true… this places highly restrictive geographic requirements as a barrier to entry and you still need a boat, oars, and a way to either transport it to/from the water or store it nearby. Not exactly something kids can do in any playground on earth.

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I am not suggesting that kids get their own boat and boathouse. I have lots of fun memories of borrowing the boat of by parents or even the neighbors boat which they have to go fishing, transport things across the lake and through the canal, etc. in order to race with my friends at the time.

You can play with any number of people (two is enough, even one person with a wall)

You can play anywhere (street, field, car park, small garden, beach)

You can play with zero equipment (tin can, any ball, school children often play with tennis balls, anything you can kick).

There was a time when baseball would be played by any number of kids, with whatever kind of stick and ball, in whatever alley or field was nearby. You never see that nowadays in the U.S., although you will see kicking a soccer ball in similar conditions.

Bruh u can't call football soccer and then go call American football handegg lmao at least one of them deserves the title of football!

Ok ok you are right. For consistent syntax, gotta call it "foot"ball and "hand"egg.

About baseball, you are assuming open spaces that most countries don't have. In Cartagena, Colombia, for example, kids used to play a certain form of baseball with soda caps and the handle of a broomstick. It requires so much skill that not many kids can play it, and those who can, only got the coordination after certain age, but it's what they can get.

Basically an open field in a residential area with no cars or windows around is as rare in Nigeria or Argentina as an Olympic pool. So, no popular swimming sports here either.

I think they mean rowing as in the Olympic sport of rowing. Those boats are pretty specialized and expensive. It’s a different motion than just a rowboat so it’s not as easily transitioned to the “real thing” like a kid playing football without appropriate gear.

I think baseball is pretty close to soccer and there is a reason it spread pretty well to other countries. I think the biggest hurdles are numbers. To play an actual game you need at least a handful of people. And without close to a full field , it becomes a lot less fun since defense gets too hard. Football can be played 1v1 all the way up to a full squad. Second while baseball in an ally is fine for younger kids, by the time you reach teenagers, broken windows and hitting it outside the area are a much bigger concern. Though usually there is an open lot available.

Largely because it's super easy to play it informally in pretty much every poor village in the world.

1 - You don't need expensive gear. Just a patch of ground, one ball, and some stuff to drop on the ground to mark the goals.

2 - You don't need the full complement of players. While the official rules require exactly 11 players per side, you can cobble together an informal game with whatever smaller number of people you have available. (Compare with something like baseball, where the pitcher, catcher, infielders, and outfielders are significantly different jobs where people can't easily overlap between them so you need people at each position.)

This makes it so that poor countries actually have a shot on the world stage. Just because you grew up in a poor village doesn't mean you didn't get to spend a lot of time playing and practicing as a kid.