Soccer

Association football, or simply football, (not to be confused with American football), is a team sport played between two teams of eleven players, and is the most popular sport in the world. The modern rules were first codified in the United Kingdom in the mid 19th century.

The term soccer originated in late-19th-century Britain as slang for "assoc.", and was the preferred name for the sport in British sports journals in the mid 20th century. Around 1980, for reasons that remain unclear, the term "soccer" disappeared seemingly overnight from British media, to be replaced by the original "football." By the 21st century, use of the term "soccer" is generally restricted to North America.

Soccer in "Christmas Truce"

During the informal ceasefire of Christmas, 1914, troops from different sides began kicking around a football in a casual way.

Soccer in Crosstime Traffic

In the United States of the home timeline, soccer was a minor sport which people thought about mainly at the time of the World Cup. Other sports, such as baseball, were far more popular. In the rest of the world, however, soccer dominated.

Vietnam defeated Italy in the World Cup finals of 2086. A referee missed an obvious off-side call during the game, costing Italy the game with a final score of 2-1.

Soccer in Curious Notions

Prior to its conquest by the German Empire in 1956, soccer was a minor sport in the United States. However, it had grown in popularity and importance in American society during the century and a half of occupation, and was one of the spheres of life in the which the Germans usually did not interfere. In San Francisco, the annual matches between the city's two rival teams, the Seals and the Missions, always drew enormous crowds and often culminated with violent clashes between the rival fans. This rivalry had a social background, with the Seals traditionally supported by the more well-to-do inhabitants while the Missions were championed by the poor. Lucy Woo was a staunch Missions fans, and thought that Paul Gomes was "the kind of person who must be for the Missions", which increased her attraction to him. Indeed - though this polar rivalry did not exist in the home timeline San Francisco he came from - when going to see a Seals-Missions match at Kezar Stadium, Paul sympathized with the Missions and cheered them, while his father Lawrence cheered the Seals.

In the soccer played in this alternate, the overtime was reserved for championship matches, so that other games often ended with a tie.

Soccer in The Disunited States of America

Soccer was extremely popular on the west coast of North America and in the Mexican states. It lost out to rounders on the east coast.

Soccer in The Gladiator

Eduardo Caruso was a big fan of soccer and supporter of his national Italian team. While in the alternate Italian People's Republic, he used an oblique reference to a bad call in the World Cup Finals of 2086 to test whether or not a clerk at The Three Sixes and staff members from By the Arch Repairs were from the home timeline.

Soccer in The Hot War

During World War III, prisoners of war from various Communist countries put together a prison football team in their camp near Lyons, France. Istvan Szolovits joined the Hungarian team.

Soccer in In the Presence of Mine Enemies

Italy had an excellent football team and was dependent on revenue from matches against visiting teams.

In 2006, Germany won the World Cup. According to his wife Lise Gimpel, Heinrich Gimpel "whooped like an Indian" when Germany scored the winning goal.

In 2011, Brazil was considered the early favorite to win the 2014 World Cup.

Soccer in Southern Victory

Soccer was extremely important in Chihuahua and Sonora, the formerly Mexican members of the Confederate States. The soccer rivalry between the two states seemed ridiculous to outsiders.

Soccer in "Topanga and the Chatsworth Lancers"

In the Changed world, soccer, with the simplicity of all its props, gained new popularity among the tiny American nation-states.

Soccer in The War That Came Early

Football was a popular sport in Münster, Germany before World War II. The Foresters were an important semi-pro team in the city. Their roster was diminished by the Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935, which removed Jewish players from the team. Musclebound star Saul Goldman, whose departure was mourned by fans of all races, embarked on an odd career which saw this Jewish strongman becoming a Wehrmacht Panzer man on the Eastern Front.

Soccer in Worldwar

David Goldfarb watched football in his off-time. He wasn't normally a fan of hooliganism, but did silently approve of hooligans supporting Manchester heckling Cologne in a home match, primarily because as a Jew he disapproved of Nazism. Goldfarb was disappointed that that particular match ended in a tie, and disbelieved the Manchester manager trying to spin the tie as a victory.

Goldfarb emigrated to Canada in 1964, and learned that Canadians tend to look down their noses at the sport. Goldfarb was surprised to hear them calling it soccer, while the term football was given to a brutal American sport.

Mordechai Anielewicz lived in Lodz near the border between the Greater German Reich and Race-controlled Poland, and could pick up German television signals. While he was disgusted with the propaganda the Nazis used, he enjoyed watching their football matches as the Germans and their allies and vassals fielded some fine clubs.