By Ben Savallo
Sports Editor
Just about anywhere you travel outside of the United States, soccer is called fùtbol. But here in America, fùtbol is called soccer. This makes absolutely no sense to me.
Instead, we have this other sport that involves very little contact between the human foot and the ball. In fact, the ball comes in more contact with the hands, that’s actually the primary place to hold the ball. So we decided to call this sport football. It just puzzles me.
Did America just get too lazy and decide to steal the name of a sport and then change the spelling? I mean honestly, in Fùtbol Americano, the only time you actually kick the ball is to give it to the other team or get half a score.
But in our defense, we aren’t the only country that decided to change the name of a an already very popular sport. Canada along with Japan, Ireland, and the southern parts of Africa also call this game soccer. And then you have places like Italy who call the game Calcio. So we aren’t solely to blame for the change of name in the sport of fùtbol.
Now in the original fùtbol, I can see why they decided to call it fùtbol. You know, because you’re only allowed to use your feet to advance the ball and score. Hey, they even get creative sometimes and used their heads.
So America I ask you, why? Why wasn’t there a committee or something to help decide the name of this sport? I mean we all knew this sport was going to become one of the most watched sports in America, didn’t we? Now after all these years, handball won’t sound as appealing to the viewer or fans. It’s too late, we’ve already created disaster.
Also as I learned handball is already a sport, an Olympic sport for that matter. So we’d have to come up with something more creative. But I also don’t see the name of the game changing anytime soon, or at all for that matter.
