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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 Fédération internationale de football association is the international governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded in 1904 to oversee international competition among the national associations of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland, its membership now comprises 211 national associations. These national associations must also be members of one of the six regional confederations into which the world is divided: CAF (Africa), AFC, UEFA (Europe), CONCACAF, OFC (Oceania) and CONMEBOL. It is most notable for the FIFA World Cup, held every four years.
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. Each NFL season begins with a three-week preseason in August, followed by the 18-week regular season which runs from early September to early January, with each team playing 17 games and having one bye week. Following the conclusion of the regular season, seven teams from each conference advance to the playoffs, a single-elimination tournament that culminates in the Super Bowl, which is contested in February and is played between the winners of the AFC and NFC championship games.
The 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 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 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 before changing to its 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 and co-organized alongside UEFA since 2024. 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. Nevertheless, in recent times, critics have described the award as a "popularity contest", criticizing its voting process, its bias in favor of attacking players, and the idea of systematically singling out an individual in a team sport.
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 Regional feeder leagues run by relevant county FAs on an ad hoc basis. It also often happens that the Premier Division of a Regional Feeder League has its constitution given to it by the FA. They have to accept it or appeal but can not reject it at an AGM.
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 current holders are Burnley, who won the 2022–23 edition.
The English Football League Two, simply known as League Two in England and for sponsorship purposes as Sky Bet League Two, is the third and lowest division of the English Football League (EFL) and fourth-highest tier overall in the English football league system.
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is the governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal in most countries/territories in Asia. It has 47 members. 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 Israel men's national football team represents Israel in international football, and is governed by the Israel Football Association (IFA).
The Malaysia national football team represents Malaysia in international football and is controlled by the Football Association of Malaysia. The national team is recognised by FIFA as the successor of the defunct Malaya national football team which was founded for the 1963 Merdeka Tournament one month before the institution of Malaysia. The team is officially nicknamed Harimau Malaya in reference to the Malayan Tiger. Former player Mokhtar Dahari is one of the top goal scorers in international history.
James Joseph Harbaugh is an American football coach and former quarterback who is the current and 20th head football coach of the Michigan Wolverines. He played college football at Michigan from 1983 to 1986. He played in the National Football League (NFL) for 14 seasons from 1987 to 2000 with his longest tenure as a player with the Chicago Bears. He served as the head coach of the San Diego Toreros (2004–2006), the Stanford Cardinal (2007–2010), and the NFL's San Francisco 49ers (2011–2014). In 2015, Harbaugh returned to his alma mater, the University of Michigan.
A national championship in the highest level of college football in the United States, currently the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), is a designation awarded annually by various organizations to their selection of the best college football team. Division I FBS football is the only National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) sport for which the NCAA does not sanction a yearly championship event. As such, it is sometimes unofficially referred to as a "mythical national championship".
American football, also known as gridiron football, 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 degrees, 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.
Travis Michael Kelce is an American football tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League (NFL). He was drafted by the Chiefs in the third round of the 2013 NFL Draft and later won Super Bowls LIV and LVII with the team, recording a touchdown reception in both wins. He played college football at the University of Cincinnati.
The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual postseason knockout invitational tournament to determine a national champion for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the highest level of college football competition in the United States. Four teams play in two semifinal games, and the winner of each semifinal advances to the College Football Playoff National Championship game.
References
- ↑ "Phonepaseuth Sysoutham". National Football Teams. Benjamin Strack-Zimmermann. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
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