Who owns the World Cup?

So it begins, a fever unlike that spread by any single-sport event in the world. The World Cup once again grips the world. People believe that it must have been a Brazilian and German game to begin with, since those two countries live it like a religion, and dominate the sport to an almost unfair extent with a handful of other countries. But there is actually scientific evidence that at least half a dozen countries from disparate parts of the globe had some form of the sport germinate in their countryside before the game evolved into modern-day football. (Remember that a cultural myopia exists in some European countries. For them, there is no other football.)

One of the questions people often ask is where the name of the game came from. Well, like many fads that last, it seems we have to thank some creative youngsters for that. In the 1880’s, it was common slang for English teen-agers — particularly at Oxford— to abbreviate words (much like texters do today) and add the letters "er" at the end to complete the word. So breakfast became "brekkers", and so on. One student, whom some sources identify as Charles Brown, was asked if he played "ruggers" or rugby. He replied, "No, soccer." Apparently, they had taken the middle syllable of "association" (for Association Football Rules), and modified it to their own liking. Sometimes they used "footer", but it didn’t stick.

The Romans also get some credit for organizing soccer matches, even as far back as the original Olympic Games, although they were incredibly rough. Some teams even involved as many as 27 players on the pitch at one time, and very often, more than half of the participants would need serious medical attention.

Strangely enough, in various cultures, soccer was originally a military pursuit, or a school leisure activity. The Munich Ethnological Museum in Germany has a Chinese text from around 50 B.C. that mentions games very similar to soccer that were played between teams from Japan and China, using a hair- or feather-filled leather ball. A military manual dating from the period of the Han Dynasty describes the game as "Tsu’Chu". But the object then was to kick the ball through an opening measuring only 30-40 cm in width, into a small net fixed onto long bamboo canes, a challenge which obviously needed great skill. A variation of this exercise also existed, wherein the player had to use his feet, chest, back and shoulders (not the hands) to move the ball while fighting off his opponents’ attacks. The Japanese also had a game called "Kemari", played in a circle, where they passed the ball around without letting it touch the ground. The Greek game, called "episkyros", has little recorded history left, but was a much more active type of game, as was the Roman version, "Harpastum", strikingly similar in form to soccer.

But nobody can explain how such a game traveled all the way from the Asian continent to Europe, though. There are some records of games using the feet in England and France, too, but little corroborative evidence. There are claims that some pagan rituals employed a round ball representing the sun, which needed to be "conquered" for the fields to produce a good harvest. Women were supposedly playing as early as the 17th century.

As early as 1314, the Lord Mayor of London issued a proclamation forbidding football within the city due to the excitement it normally usually caused. Infringement of this law meant imprisonment. King Edward declared that football was not only useless, but downright vulgar and indecent, and ordered imprisonment for those caught playing. Scotland and France also tried to suppress the game, but failed. Starting in the 1600’s, the wave of Puritanism (some say censorship), which hamstrung theatre and the arts, also prohibited football on Sundays, a ban which stood for 300 years. But the game became so popular by the 1800’s that, in certain annual contests in northern England, large groups roamed and raged through towns and villages. In 1829, records of a match in Derbyshire spoke of "broken skins, broken heads, torn coats and lost hats." We’re not sure if that was just the participants, or the members of the audience, as well.

But soccer really caught on when students at the more refined universities got hooked on the game. In 1863, soccer formally branched off from rugby, and the size and weight of the ball were standardized. Soccer players did not want carrying of the ball allowed—a distinct difference from rugby—and objected to dirty tricks like tripping and shin-kicking. England formed the first football association, followed by Scotland a decade later. The international community likewise grew steadily. By 1912, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) had 21 members. This would balloon to 36 by 1925. Now, there are 204.

The modern game is an unbridled passion in Brazil, the way basketball is to Filipinos. Ironically, Brazilians only learned the game about a hundred years ago.

Like basketball was brought to the Philippines by missionaries, soccer was injected into the stream of Brazilian sports by expatriates. Charles Miller was the son of a Scottish banker, born in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1875. At the appropriate age, he was shipped back to England for formal education. At school, he learned the game, and it became his addiction.

In 1894, when his schooling was done, Charles returned to Brazil, with one major difference: he had two soccer balls in his suitcase. Strangely enough, although the English had settled well in Sao Paulo and had brought with them many habits of their culture and leisure, soccer was mysteriously absent. Charles found this unacceptable. His first goal: teach the rules and put together teams of British companies there.

In the first-ever organized soccer match in Brazil, Miller’s team won, 1-0, in front of an amused but not particularly excited crowd of 60 people. In 1901, the Liga Paulista de Futebol was organized, with five teams. What is now known as "samba" soccer was born. Miller died in 1953, five years before Brazil won the first of its record five World Cups, long before Edson Arantes do Nascimento became the world’s most famous soccer player and movie star as Pele. It’s amazing how the passion of one man has consumed a country for over a century, and has turned it into a world power in the fascinating game he learned in school.

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