Eight Astonishing Facts about Soccer You Did Not Know

There is eternal popularity of youth soccer in the USA. Over the years, it has grown exponentially that in the last couple of years, soccer has become the second most played sport for both boys and girls, especially under the age group of thirteen years and younger.

Given that both women’s and men’s US national team performances in prestigious platforms, such as the Olympics and World Cup, are catching the global eye, today, more and more children are attracted to this sport. 

Regardless of the fact that soccer is today gaining traction as a prevalent youth sport in the US, it still happens to be one of the most-watched and played sport globally and has been so for ages. Usually, people are aware of the basics of sports, but there are still some things that people do not know about soccer yet. What are these things? Let us read below to find out. 

Highest ever soccer score

Rustic, an educator who offers assignment help USA, has shared this brilliant fact about soccer that most of you may not know. 

‘The higher ever score of soccer has been 149-0, and this miracle happened when the Stade Olympique de L’emyrne was defeated against AS Adema of Madagascar in 2002, following a penalty. So, as a mark of protest, the team purposely went ahead and scored 149 goals in their own net in the next game.’

In a soccer game, the player can run up to seven miles.

An article by the NY Times says, it is the soccer players who run the most of all the athletes. SportsVu, a motion-tracking technology company, tracked players and found that an average player runs approximately seven miles in a soccer game. Some players ran as much as 9.5 miles in a game.

However, there is no denying that the amount a player runs in a soccer game varies on various factors, such as ages, levels, and field size. So, if anyone wants to take up sports as a form of exercise, you know which one to begin with if you want to shed some weight.

In 2010, people drank over two million beers

On the day of the 2010 World Cup in the stadium, over 224,546 gallons of beer along with 390,600 hot dogs were sold. It is slightly less than what the grizzly bear ate on defeating Kobayashi. 

You can proudly call football soccer

‘Of course, it is true that the world around you may call it football or, at times, even the language’s version of it, you can call it soccer proudly. It is not the US alone who calls it soccer.

New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Japan, South Africa, Ireland, and most of the South Pacific also call it soccer,’ shares Raun, an educator who works with a platform that offers ‘take my online class for me services. 

British colonizers and immigrants in several countries brought along the two games they refer to as football – rugby and soccer. To cut a distinction, the football played in the World Cup began to be called the associated football and it was later shortened and called soccer.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the Britishers again went back and started calling soccer football again. However, the former colonies devised other games that they referred to as football and kept calling the original one soccer. 

There are places where soccer was illegal.

Till 1991, Mississippi considered soccer illegal.

The soccer field’s size can be variable.

‘Also known as the pitch, the field in soccer can vary in both length and breadth. It all depends on the area available to play,’ points out Merlin, an online AP chemistry tutor. 

If you read the official FIFA guidelines, you will know that they have made rules about the field size, and proper field standards for all the professional leagues have also been set. So, according to the guidelines, in the professional field, the dimensions can be 100 to 130 yards in length, and the width can be between 50 to 100 yards.

If the field is in line with these dimensions, it is an apt size for professional games. However, as for the youth soccer leagues, the field sizes are typically adapted to accommodate according to the player’s age. 

Pele is the most renowned soccer player.

There are so many people around the world who believe that Pele or Edson Arantes do Nascimento is the greatest soccer player of all time. He is a Brazilian player, and he has taken his team to four World Cup matches. Of the four World Cup matches that he was a part of, he won three of them. Pele has been into soccer ever since he was only fifteen years old. Across his professional career, Pele ended up scoring 1281 goals before he finally retired in 1977. 

North Korean’s team lost a match because of lightning.

When the women’s North Korean team lost the match, their coach Kwang Min Kim explained that the team lost after being hit by lightning during the training session.