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Funnily enough, in most countries where 'soccer' is popular, it is called by some local direct translation of the word football: football (UK, France), futbol (Latin America, Spain), and Fußball (Germany). And this makes sense, because in 'soccer', the ball is mostly played with the foot. American Football, on the other hand, has the ball mostly played with the hand and only the USA refers to the game as 'soccer', which is an anachronism stemming from the English turn-of-the-century phrase "Association Football" - now long defunct in its homeland. And that shows how often Americans speak English that originated in England but is no longer used there, having been supplanted by continentalisms over the course of decades and centuries - see http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/adventure-of-english/

Of course, you're stuck as to what to call American Football, because handball is now a completely different sport that is popular in central europe, but never really cracked the anglosphere.

Completely off-topic, I know, but interesting nonetheless. There's probably some analogy that can be drawn here between common names for things and the various display ports that are used and fail to be standardised upon, but I am too tired to find it :-)



How about American Rugby?


It's called Gridiron.




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