Portal:Association football

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Association football, commonly known as football, or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players each, 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 opposing team by moving the ball beyond the goal line into a rectangular-framed goal defended by the opposing team. 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 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, under the bar, and across the goal line), 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. There are situations where a goal can be disallowed, such as an offside call or a foul in the build-up to the goal. 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 shoot-out.

Internationally, association football is governed by FIFA. Under FIFA, there are six continental confederations: AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, OFC, and UEFA. Of these confederations, CONMEBOL is the oldest one, being founded in 1916. 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. Since 2009, the final of the men's tournament has been the most-watched annual sporting event in the world. (Full article...)

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The Mariners home stadium.

Central Coast Mariners Football Club are an Australian professional football (soccer) team based on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia.

Formed in 2004, the Mariners participate in the A-League, being one of only three teams from New South Wales to play in the competition and the first professional club from the Central Coast to compete.

Despite being considered one of the smaller franchises at the inception of the A-League competition, Central Coast qualified for the first four domestic finals after their establishment. The Mariners had a successful first season, winning the 2005 Pre-Season Cup and losing in the A-League grand final to Sydney FC.

They made the final of the Pre-Season Cup again in 2006 but lost to Adelaide United and finished sixth in the 2006–07 A-League competition at the end of the season. (Full article...)

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Henrik Larsson playing for Barcelona in 2006

Henrik Larsson MBE (born September 20, 1971 in Helsingborg, Skåne) is a Swedish footballer. Larsson is best known for helping win four titles in seven years for Scottish club Celtic. He subsequently had a two-year spell at Barcelona of Spain, where he won two titles and the Champions League. He is the top scorer of all time in the UEFA Cup and one of the top ten scorers of all time in all UEFA club competitions.

Larsson amassed 93 caps over 13 years for Sweden, scoring 36 goals. In the summer of 2006 he retired from international football and returned to his home town club of Helsingborgs IF. He later joined Manchester United on a brief loan spell between January and March 2007.

Larsson amassed 93 caps over 13 years for Sweden, scoring 36 goals. In November 2003, the Swedish Football Association bestowed upon him the accolade "greatest Swedish football player of the last 50 years" as part of UEFA's Jubilee celebrations. (Full article...)

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The German Football Association (German: Deutscher Fußball-Bund [ˈdɔʏtʃɐ ˈfuːsbalˌbʊnt]; DFB [ˌdeːʔɛfˈbeː] ^ⓘ) is the governing body of football, futsal, and beach soccer in Germany. A founding member of both FIFA and UEFA, the DFB has jurisdiction for the German football league system and is in charge of the men's and women's national teams. The DFB headquarters are in Frankfurt am Main. Sole members of the DFB are the German Football League (German: Deutsche Fußball Liga; DFL), organising the professional Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga, along with five regional and 21 state associations, organising the semi-professional and amateur levels. The 21 state associations of the DFB have a combined number of more than 25,000 clubs with more than 6.8 million members, making the DFB the single largest sports federation in the world. (Full article...)

Did you know (auto-generated) -

... that Ryan Roberts, a defensive end for Notre Dame, was a soccer player in high school?
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... that after his soccer career, Steve Palacios enlisted in the United States Army and played for the United States Armed Forces soccer team?
... that Welsh footballer Jon Morgan went on to become a college principal after retiring?

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Football at the 2007 Pan American Games

Credit: Agência Brasil

2007 FIFA World Player of the Year nominee Christiane controls the ball during the 2007 Pan American Games Gold Match. Brazil beat the United States 5-0 to win the competition for the second time.

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General images -

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

Image 1Harrow School team of 1867. (from History of association football)
Image 2FC de Rakt DA1 (2008/2009) (from Women's association football)
Image 3Iran vs Turkey in 2010 Youth Olympics (from Women's association football)
Image 4A Welsh women's football team pose for a photograph in 1959 (from Women's association football)
Image 5Drawing of the first international game by artist William Ralston (from History of association football)
Image 6Chelsea, a women's football club of London, England in 2020. (from Women's association football)
Image 7Mia Hamm (left) battles with German defender Kerstin Stegemann (from Women's association football)
Image 8Sheffield F.C. (here pictured in 1876) is the oldest association club still active, having been founded in 1857 (from History of association football)
Image 9Representation of a football match from the book Athletics and football, 1894 (from History of association football)
Image 10Japanese high-school girls playing football in their traditional hakama with one team wearing sashes (c. 1920) (from Women's association football)
Image 11Old Etonians v Blackburn Rovers match. Illustration by S.T. Dadd, 1882 (from History of 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 13The Royal Engineers team who reached the first FA Cup final in 1872 (from History of association football)
Image 14From 1866 to 1883, the laws provided for a tape between the goalposts (from Laws of the Game (association football))
Image 15"North" team of the British Ladies' Football Club, 1895 (from Women's 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))

Selected World Cup

The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which had won the right to host the event in July 2000. Teams representing 198 national football associations from all six populated continents participated in the qualification process which began in September 2003. Thirty-one teams qualified from this process along with hosts Germany for the finals tournament. It was the second time that Germany staged the competition and the first as a unified country along with the former East Germany with Leipzig as a host city (the other was in 1974 in West Germany), and the 10th time that the tournament was held in Europe.

Italy won the tournament, claiming their fourth World Cup title, defeating France 5–3 in a penalty shoot-out in the final after extra time had finished in a 1–1 draw. Germany defeated Portugal 3–1 to finish in third place. Angola, Ukraine, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Trinidad and Tobago and Togo made their first appearances in the finals. It was also the only appearance of Serbia and Montenegro under that name; they had previously appeared in 1998 as Yugoslavia. In late May 2006, immediately prior to the tournament, Montenegro voted in a referendum to become an independent nation and dissolve the loose confederacy then existing between it and Serbia; Serbia recognised the results of the referendum in early June. Due to time constraints, FIFA had Serbia and Montenegro play in the World Cup tournament as one team, marking the first instance of multiple sovereign nations competing as one team in a major football tournament since UEFA Euro 1992. (Full article...)

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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 Crewe Alexandra were promoted back to the second tier of English football for the first time in 101 years when they won the 1997 Football League Second Division play-off Final? (27 March 2021)
... that both of Scunthorpe United's substitutes failed to score their penalties in the shootout, which saw them lose the 1992 Football League Fourth Division play-off Final? (21 April 2021)
... that some of the Sheffield Wednesday team participated in a conga on the M4 motorway after winning the 2005 Football League One play-off Final? (19 February 2021)
... that Duncan Jupp scored his first league goal for more than a decade in the 2005 Football League Two play-off Final? (2 April 2021)
... that after winning the 2004 Football League Second Division play-off Final, some of the Brighton & Hove Albion players dropped the trophy while celebrating and damaged it? (2 March 2021)
... that Manjappada, a supporters' group of Kerala Blasters FC, coordinated and brought forty-one busloads of their fans across Kerala to the venue for the opening match of the 2019–20 season? (26 January 2021)

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