Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players each, who almost exclusively 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 1930 FIFA World Cup was the inaugural FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national football teams. It took place in Uruguay from 13 to 30 July 1930. FIFA, football's international governing body, selected Uruguay as the host nation, as the country would be celebrating the centenary of its first constitution and the Uruguay national football team had retained their football title at the 1928 Summer Olympics. All matches were played in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo, the majority at the purpose built Estadio Centenario.
The 1934 FIFA World Cup was the 2nd edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football championship for senior men's national teams. It took place in Italy from 27 May to 10 June 1934.
Santos Futebol Clube is a Brazilian sports club based in Vila Belmiro, a bairro in the city of Santos. It plays in the Campeonato Paulista, the state of São Paulo's premier state league, as well as the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, the top flight of the Brazilian football league system, after winning the 2024 Série B title.
Football is the most popular sport in Brazil and a prominent part of the country's national identity. The Brazil national football team has won the FIFA World Cup five times, the most of any team, in 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994 and 2002. Brazil and Germany are the only teams to succeed in qualifying for all the World Cups for which they entered the qualifiers; Brazil is the only team to participate in every World Cup competition ever held. Brazil has also won an Olympic gold medal, at the 2016 Summer Olympics held in Rio de Janeiro and at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
The Peru national football team, nicknamed La Bicolor, represents Peru in men's international football. The national team has been organised, since 1927, by the Peruvian Football Federation (FPF). The FPF constitutes one of the ten members of FIFA's South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL). Peru has won the Copa América twice, and has qualified for the FIFA World Cup five times ; the team also participated in the 1936 Olympic football competition and has reached the semi-finals of the CONCACAF Gold Cup. The team plays most of its home matches at the Estadio Nacional in Lima, the country's capital.
In association football, a bicycle kick, also known as an overhead kick or scissors kick, is an acrobatic strike where a player kicks an airborne ball rearward in midair. It is achieved by throwing the body backward up into the air and, before descending to the ground, making a shearing movement with the legs to get the ball-striking leg in front of the other. In most languages, the manoeuvre is named after either the cycling motion or the scissor motion that it resembles. Its complexity, and uncommon performance in competitive football matches, makes it one of association football's most celebrated skills.
On 29 June 1950, the United States defeated England 1–0 in a World Cup group match at Estádio Independência in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
The Brazil women's national football team represents Brazil in international women's football and is run by the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF). It has participated in all nine editions of the FIFA Women's World Cup, finishing as runner-up in 2007, and nine editions of the Copa América Femenina.
Marcos Roberto Silveira dos Reis, known as Marcos, is a Brazilian former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He spent his entire professional career at Palmeiras, of the Série A, from 1992 until his retirement in January 2012, and became one of the club's greatest idols, being nicknamed São Marcos. He was the starting goalkeeper of the champion Brazilian squad of the 2002 FIFA World Cup. He is regarded by pundits as one of the greatest Brazilian goalkeepers of all time.
The beautiful game is a nickname for association football. It was popularised by Brazilian footballer Pelé, who played from 1957 to 1977. It was a term widely used in Brazil, though some think the exact origin of the phrase is disputed. Stuart Hall, an English football commentator, used it in 1958. Hall admired Peter Doherty when he went to see Manchester City play at Maine Road and used the term the beautiful game to describe football as a whole. During his career, the Brazilian footballer Ronaldinho was an exponent of the jogo bonito style of play. Although made famous around the world, the phrase jogo bonito in Brazil has been replaced with futebol-arte which means the same.
Women's football is not as popular in Brazil as men's football, although it has increased in popularity since the 2000s.
The history of Santos Futebol Clube goes from the football club's founding in 1912 and up to current time. Santos FC, also known simply as "Santos" and familiarly as "Peixe", is based in Santos, São Paulo, Brazil. The team was founded on April 14, 1912, by the initiative of three sports enthusiasts from Santos: Raimundo Marques, Mário Ferraz de Campos, and Argemiro de Souza Júnior. In 1962, the club participated in their first of many South American competitions, and has since amassed seven CONMEBOL trophies and a quadruple. In 1971, Santos co-founded the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, the top-tier in Brazil football, along with a string of other clubs.
Santos Futebol Clube is a Brazilian professional football club, based in Santos, Brazil. They play in the Campeonato Paulista, São Paulo's state league, and the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A or Brasileirão, Brazil's national league, and are one of the only three clubs to have never been relegated, along with São Paulo and Flamengo. Santos was a founding member of the Clube dos 13 group of Brazil's leading football clubs.
Santos FC is a football club based in Santos, that competes in the Campeonato Paulista, São Paulo's state league, and the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A or Brasileirão, Brazil's national league. The club was founded in 1912 by the initiative of three sports enthusiasts from Santos by the names of Raimundo Marques, Mário Ferraz de Campos, and Argemiro de Souza Júnior, and played its first friendly match on June 23, 1914. Initially Santos played against other local clubs in the city and state championships, but in 1959 the club became one of the founding members of the Taça Brasil, Brazil's first truly national league. Up until 2023, Santos was one of only five clubs never to have been relegated from the top level of Brazilian football, the others being São Paulo, Flamengo, Internacional and Cruzeiro.
Os Santásticos is the nickname for the group of Santos Futebol Clube players coached by Lula and Antoninho that won a total of 25 titles between 1959 and 1974, including two Copa Libertadores. The group is considered one of the strongest teams ever assembled in any sport, scoring over 3000 goals during this period, with an average of over 2.5 goals per match.
The Adidas Tango 12 was the official match ball of the UEFA Euro 2012, with variants being used for the 2012 Summer Olympics. The ball is named after the original and successful Adidas Tango family of footballs from the late 1970s, but the construction of the Tango 12 is completely different. Variations of the ball have been used in other contemporary competitions including the Africa Cup of Nations and the Summer Olympics – Adidas has not categorised these football as the "Adidas Tango 12" family, however they are listed here due to their similar design.
Association football is the world's most popular sport and is worth US$600 billion worldwide. By the end of the 20th century it was played by over 250 million players in over 200 countries. Around the world, the sport is played at a professional level by professional footballers, and millions of people regularly go to football stadiums to follow their favourite football teams, while billions more watch the sport on television or on the internet. Football has the highest global television audience in sport. The sport had amateur origins and evolved into the modern professional competition.
Football is the most popular sport in Africa, alongside basketball. Indeed, football is probably the most popular sport in every African country, although rugby and cricket are also very popular in South Africa. The first football stadium to be built in Africa was the Alexandria Stadium in 1929.
The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football is a book by David Goldblatt, first published in 2014. It looks at the development of football in England from the 1990s onwards, and at how the footballing culture reflected changes in wider English culture. The book was named the 2015 William Hill Sports Book of the Year.
