Portal:Association football

The Association football portal

The attacking player (No. 10) attempts to kick the ball beyond the opposing team's goalkeeper, between the goalposts, and beneath the crossbar to score a goal.

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Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel a ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is to score more goals than the opposite team by moving the ball beyond the goal line into a rectangular-framed goal defended by the opposing side. Traditionally, the game has been played over two 45-minute halves, for a total match time of 90 minutes. With an estimated 250 million players active in over 200 countries and territories, it is considered the world's most popular sport.

The game of association football is played in accordance with the Laws of the Game, a set of rules that has been in effect since 1863 and maintained by the IFAB since 1886. The game is played with a football that is 68–70 cm (27–28 in) in circumference. The two teams compete to get the ball into the other team's goal (between the posts and under the bar), thereby scoring a goal. When the ball is in play, the players mainly use their feet, but may use any other part of their body, except for their hands or arms, to control, strike, or pass the ball. Only the goalkeepers may use their hands and arms, and only then within the penalty area. The team that has scored more goals at the end of the game is the winner. Depending on the format of the competition, an equal number of goals scored may result in a draw being declared, or the game goes into extra time or a penalty shootout.

Internationally, association football is governed by FIFA. Under FIFA, there are six continental confederations: AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, OFC and UEFA. National associations (e.g. The FA or JFA) are responsible for managing the game in their own countries both professionally and at an amateur level, and coordinating competitions in accordance with the Laws of the Game. The most senior and prestigious international competitions are the FIFA World Cup and the FIFA Women's World Cup. The men's World Cup is the most-viewed sporting event in the world, surpassing the Olympic Games. The two most prestigious competitions in European club football are the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Women's Champions League, which attract an extensive television audience throughout the world. The final of the men's tournament has been, in recent years, the most-watched annual sporting event in the world. (Full article...)

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Margate (blue shirts) in action in 2007

Margate Football Club are an English football team based in the seaside resort of Margate, Kent. Nicknamed "The Gate", the club have reached the third round proper of England's premier cup competition, the FA Cup, on two occasions.

Founded in 1896, the club joined the Southern Football League in 1933 and remained there until 2001 when they gained promotion to the Football Conference, the highest level of English non-league football.

Their tenure in the Conference saw the team forced to groundshare with other clubs due to drawn-out and problematic redevelopment work at their Hartsdown Park stadium, and during the three years spent away from their own ground they were expelled from the Conference National and subsequently relegated to the Isthmian League. (Full article...)

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Robbie Fowler

Robbie Fowler, (born 9 April 1975 in Liverpool) is an English footballer who plays as a striker.

Fowler's career began with Liverpool, with whom he made his début in 1993. He scored 120 premiership goals for Liverpool in an eight year period and was also voted the PFA Young Player of the Year in two consecutive years, 1995 and 1996. 1996 was also the year that he won a UEFA Fair Play award for admitting that he had not been fouled by David Seaman at Highbury after a penalty had been given.

Fowler moved on to Leeds United in 2001 and later Manchester City in 2003 before returning to Liverpool in January 2006 for a season. He signed a two-year contract with Cardiff City in July 2007.

He has been capped for England twenty-six times, scoring seven goals. The most recent of these appearances came in the 2002 World Cup. As of August 2007, Fowler is the fourth highest goalscorer in Premier League history. In 2005, Fowler was listed as one of the 1,000 wealthiest Britons by the Sunday Times Rich List. Business interests including a large property portfolio led to Fowler becoming the third wealthiest footballer in that year's selection. (Full article...)

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The Football Association of Indonesia (Indonesian: Persatuan Sepakbola Seluruh Indonesia; lit. 'All-Indonesian Football Association'; abbreviated as PSSI) is the governing body of football in Indonesia. It was founded on 19 April 1930, fifteen years before Indonesian independence. PSSI joined the Asian Football Confederation in 1954 and FIFA in 1952. (Full article...)

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... that Ecuadorian footballer Hernán Galíndez won a bicycle for beating a team featuring Lionel Messi when they were children?
... that after his soccer career, Steve Palacios enlisted in the United States Army and played for the United States Armed Forces soccer team?
... that Carlton Town F.C., now competing at the eighth tier of the English football pyramid, was once denied promotion by a hat-trick scored by future England international Jamie Vardy?
... that Hege Lanes Steinlund is believed to have officiated more international football matches than any other Norwegian referee?
... that Cheye Alexander became a professional footballer despite suffering acute knee pain as a teenager due to Osgood–Schlatter disease?
... that, during his time in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, footballer Ernie Curtis would obtain extra food by teaching his captors how to play with a ball made of paper?
... that footballer Jamal Farhan, who was banned for life by FIFA after punching a referee in the head, later expressed remorse and advised fans not to imitate him?
... that Ryan Roberts, a defensive end for Notre Dame, was a soccer player in high school?

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Football at the Summer Olympics

Credit: Wikimedia Commons User:Parutakupiu

The sport of Association football has been played at the Summer Olympic Games since 1896. An unofficial event until the 1908 London Olympics, teams have participated for medals in every event since with one exception. In 1932, FIFA prevented the playing of football at the 1932 Summer Olympics due to the perception that it may overshadow the newly created FIFA World Cup competition. It was an amateur event until 1984, when the IOC admitted professional players for the first time in order to boost popularity and Women's football was added to the program in 1996.

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I can't believe it. I can't believe it. Football. Bloody hell. — Alex Ferguson, immediately after the 1999 UEFA Champions League Final

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The following are images from various association football-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1The Royal Engineers team who reached the first FA Cup final in 1872 (from History of association football)
Image 2Japanese high-school girls playing football in their traditional hakama with one team wearing sashes (c. 1920) (from Women's association football)
Image 3FC de Rakt DA1 (2008/2009) (from Women's association football)
Image 4Representation of a football match from the book Athletics and football, 1894 (from History of association football)
Image 5Illustration of Parker's Piece, (1907) (from History of association football)
Image 6Old Etonians v Blackburn Rovers match. Illustration by S.T. Dadd, c. 1871 (from History of association football)
Image 7Mia Hamm (left) battles with German defender Kerstin Stegemann (from Women's association football)
Image 8From 1866 to 1883, the laws provided for a tape between the goalposts (from Laws of the Game (association football))
Image 9Sheffield F.C. (here pictured in 1876) is the oldest association club still active, having been founded in 1857 (from History of association football)
Image 10"North" team of the British Ladies' Football Club, 1895 (from Women's association football)
Image 11Kuopion Mimmifutis (KMF), a women's football club of Kuopio, Finland in 2006 (from Women's association football)
Image 12When first introduced in 1891, the penalty was awarded for offences within 12 yards of the goal-line. (from Laws of the Game (association football))
Image 13Iran vs Turkey in 2010 Youth Olympics (from Women's association football)
Image 14A Welsh women's football team pose for a photograph in 1959 (from Women's association football)
Image 15Harrow School team of 1867. (from History of association football)
Image 16An early draft of the original hand-written 'Laws of the Game' drawn up on behalf of The Football Association by Ebenezer Cobb Morley in 1863 on display at the National Football Museum, Manchester. (from Laws of the Game (association football))
Image 17Drawing of the first international game by artist William Ralston (from History of association football)

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The 1950 FIFA World Cup was the fourth edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football championship for senior men's national teams and held in Brazil from 24 June to 16 July 1950. It was the first World Cup tournament in over twelve years, as the 1942 and 1946 World Cups were cancelled due to World War II. Uruguay, who had won the inaugural competition in 1930, defeated the host nation, Brazil, in the deciding match of the four-team group of the final round. This was the only tournament not decided by a one-match final. It was also the inaugural tournament where the trophy was referred to as the Jules Rimet Cup, to mark the 25th anniversary of Jules Rimet's presidency of FIFA. (Full article...)

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6 articles

UEFA club competition winning managers, Lists of

European Cup and UEFA Champions League

UEFA Cup

UEFA Super Cup

UEFA Intertoto Cup

UEFA Cup Winners' Cup

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... that 23-year-old Michael Oliver refereed the 2009 Football League One play-off Final at Wembley Stadium the day after his father had officiated the 2009 Football League Two play-off Final? (11 March 2021)
... that, such was his popularity with the club's supporters, when footballer Hughie Ferguson was sold by Motherwell F.C., the local steel works closed to allow workers to wave him off? (31 March 2021)
... that despite his side winning the 1998 Football League Second Division play-off Final, Grimsby's Alan Buckley said "Anybody who says they enjoy play-offs aren't football managers"? (19 April 2021)
... that MLS Cup 1999 was played with new rule changes that were approved days before the game? (28 March 2021)
... that the 2010 Football League Two play-off Final at Wembley Stadium was won by "a pub team from Essex"? (25 February 2021)
... that Phil Chisnall moved from Manchester United to Liverpool in April 1964, becoming the last player to be transferred directly between the two clubs? (26 March 2021)