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Association football, more 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 National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and the highest professional level of American football in the world. The league is headquartered in New York City.
Union of European Football Associations is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs football, futsal and beach football in Europe and the transcontinental countries of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia and Kazakhstan, as well as some Asian countries such as Israel, Cyprus and Armenia. UEFA consists of 55 national association members. Because of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, FIFA and UEFA suspended all Russian national teams and clubs from any FIFA and UEFA competitions.
The EFL Cup, currently known as the Carabao Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual knockout competition and major trophy in men's domestic football in England. Organised by the English Football League (EFL), it is open to any club within the top four levels of the English football league system – 92 clubs in total – comprising the top-level Premier League, and the three divisions of the English Football League's own league competition.
The Norway national football team represents Norway in men's international football and is controlled by the Norwegian Football Federation, the governing body for football in Norway. Norway's home ground is Ullevaal Stadion in Oslo and their head coach is Ståle Solbakken. Norway has participated three times in the FIFA World Cup, and once in the UEFA European Championship (2000).
The UEFA European Football Championship, less formally the European Championship and informally the Euro, is the primary association football tournament organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). The competition is contested by UEFA members' senior men's national teams, determining the continental champion of Europe. It is the second-most watched football tournament in the world after the FIFA World Cup. The Euro 2012 final was watched by a global audience of around 300 million. The competition has been held every four years since 1960, except for 2020, when it was postponed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe, but kept the name Euro 2020. Scheduled to be in the even-numbered year between FIFA World Cup tournaments, it was originally called the European Nations' Cup, changing to the current name in 1968. Since 1996, the individual events have been branded as "UEFA Euro [year]".
The Ballon d'Or is an annual football award presented by French news magazine France Football since 1956. Between 2010 and 2015, in an agreement with FIFA, the award was temporarily merged with the FIFA World Player of the Year and known as the FIFA Ballon d'Or. That partnership ended in 2016, and the award reverted to the Ballon d'Or, while FIFA also reverted to its own separate annual award The Best FIFA Men's Player. The recipients of the joint FIFA Ballon d'Or are considered as winners by both award organisations. The Ballon d’Or is generally regarded as football’s most prestigious and valuable individual award.
The English football league system, also known as the football pyramid, is a series of interconnected leagues for men's association football clubs in England, with five teams from Wales, one from Guernsey, one from Jersey and one from the Isle of Man also competing. The system has a hierarchical format with promotion and relegation between leagues at different levels, allowing even the smallest club the theoretical possibility of ultimately rising to the very top of the system, the Premier League. Below that are levels 2–4 organised by the English Football League, then the National League System from levels 5–10 administered by the FA, and thereafter feeder leagues run by relevant county FAs on an ad hoc basis.
The English Football League Championship, known simply as the Championship in England and for sponsorship purposes as Sky Bet Championship, is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the English football league system after the Premier League, and is currently contested by 24 clubs.
The English Football League Two, simply known as League Two in England and for sponsorship purposes as Sky Bet League Two, is the 3rd and lowest division of the English Football League (EFL) and fourth-highest division overall in the English football league system.
The Asian Football Confederation is the governing body of association football, beach football, and futsal in some countries/territories in Asia and Oceania. It has 47 member countries most of which are located in Asia. Australia, formerly in OFC, joined AFC in 2006. Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, both territories of the United States, are also AFC members that are geographically in Oceania. The Asian Ladies Football Confederation (ALFC) was the section of AFC who managed women's association football in Asia. The group was independently founded in April 1968 in a meeting involving Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. In 1986 ALFC merged with AFC.
The India national football team represents India in international football and is governed by the All India Football Federation (AIFF) and is under the global jurisdiction of FIFA. It is governed in Asia by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and in South Asia by South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) — both of which were co-founded by the Indian team's supervising body, the AIFF.
The AFC Champions League is an annual continental club football competition organised by the Asian Football Confederation, and contested by Asia's top-division football clubs. It is the most prestigious club competition in Asian football, played by the national league champions of their national associations.
The Pakistan national football team represents Pakistan in men's international football in FIFA-authorized events and is controlled by the Pakistan Football Federation, the governing body for football in Pakistan. Pakistan became a member of FIFA in 1948 joining the Asian Football Confederation and its national team debuted in 1950.
The UEFA European Under-21 Championship, the UEFA Under-21 Championship or simply the Euro Under-21, is a biennial football competition contested by the European men's under-21 national teams of the UEFA member associations. Since 1992, the competition also serves as the UEFA qualification tournament for the Summer Olympics.
The South Asian Football Federation Championship, commonly known as SAFF Cup, is the main international association football competition of the men's national football teams governed by the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF). All seven teams are eligible to compete in tournament.
American football, also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with possession of the oval-shaped football, attempts to advance down the field by running with the ball or passing it, while the defense, the team without possession of the ball, aims to stop the offense's advance and to take control of the ball for themselves. The offense must advance at least ten yards in four downs or plays; if they fail, they turn over the football to the defense, but if they succeed, they are given a new set of four downs to continue the drive. Points are scored primarily by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone for a touchdown or kicking the ball through the opponent's goalposts for a field goal. The team with the most points at the end of a game wins.
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word football normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly called football include association football ; gridiron football ; Australian rules football; rugby union and rugby league; and Gaelic football. These various forms of football share to varying extents common origins and are known as "football codes".
The 2020 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2020 or simply Euro 2020, was the 16th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men's football championship of Europe organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the European Championship competition, UEFA president Michel Platini declared that the tournament would be hosted in several nations as a "romantic" one-off event, with 11 cities in 11 UEFA countries each providing venues for the tournament, making it the second tournament in the history after the 2007 AFC Asian Cup to have more than two nations co-hosting it. Defending champions Portugal, who won UEFA Euro 2016 in France, were eliminated in the round of 16 by Belgium. Italy won their second European Championship title by beating England on penalties in the final following a 1–1 draw after extra time. The win came exactly on the 39th anniversary of Italy's 1982 FIFA World Cup Final win over West Germany.
References
- ↑ The ESPN Pro Football Encyclopedia (first ed.). Sterling Publishing. 2007. p. 410. ISBN 978-1-4027-4216-3.