The Sport of Football and the FIFA World Cup

If you want to know how the game of football was formed into the popular worldwide sport it is today, where the players are superstars and several billion viewers follow the games, you can get a walk-through the history of the most famous sport beneath.

The World Cup is coming up this November and engaged fans all over the globe are already looking into world cup odds to see how the predictions are looking. It is always a gathering and exciting event to follow whether you are a dedicated fan or not.

And it is very engaging for most nations as their national team might be playing as opposed to in the Premier Leagues where it is clubs and not nations. Even if they are not fans often follow different players or simply want to know how every team plays. If you are curious to know how the sport developed into what it had become today, from a simple and not that organized sport into a worldwide event with people watching and betting on it, which you can do at BetUS.

The FIFA World Cup is watched by approximately 3,57 billion viewers around the globe. And football is the most popular sport and it has been for a very long time. It is one of those sports with an old and rich culture that has been well-established in each nation having their very own leagues and their national team. Football is a sport well-known all around the world and it is not limited to certain countries or areas such as American football and baseball which are sports primarily practiced and known in the U.S. and Canada. Football has spread widely in the years of its existence and let’s look at the history of its origin.

The history of football

Source: thepfsa.co.uk

This game is both referred to as football and soccer, no matter what we call it, football in the form we know it today occured in England in the middle of the 19th century. However, different types of the game had existed for a long while, and the very first game involving a ball can be dated back to the old Mesoamerican cultures around 3000 years ago in this case the ball was simply a rock.

The indegineous tribe the Aztecs in South America even named it Tchatali. This was where the first ball made of rubber was made making it more similar to the balls we know today. The formalized organization of the sport first began in the 19th century where the sport as we know it today was formed by specific rules, teams and tournaments.

The rules of football

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In the 1800s was the first attempt to form a set of rules to be used wherever the sport was played out. This was carried out in a meeting in Cambridge in 1848, where representatives from the British schools were participants and it resulted in the Cambridge Rules. At the meetings forming this set of first rules it was decided that the sport should only be played using the feet and not the hands. And this was an important differentiation from Rugby. Until 1863 the ball was still carried by the hands by many practitioners.

The first referee was involved in 1871 which is pretty late considering how important a part of the game these are today. And since then a lot has changed in the way a match is judged. Today we have a whole team of people watching playbacks of certain goals, tackles and everything in between to make sure that they make the right decision. For a long time the judgment was only based on the referee on the field and there was no opportunity to look into or follow up on specific situations on the field. Nowadays there are many tech tools to help make sure that the judgment is fair. However, there are still players as well as coaches that try to argue with the referee if they are not satisfied with the judgment.

The FIFA World Cup

Source: goal.com

The very first competition in football was held in 1871 and organized by the Football Association Challenge Cup. And in 1872 the very first match between two national teams where played out and it was between England and Scotland and with the boring result of 0-0. And in 1883 the first international tournament took place with four teams: Wales, Scotland, Ireland and England. The first game played outside of Europe took place in Argentina in 1867.

In 1904 FIFA was founded and the act of foundation was signed by France, Denmark, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden and The Netherlands. And with the FIFA formed the World Cup began to take place. England did not want to participate in the federation and the World Cup until 1950 as they felt an ownership of the sport and their league had already existed for a long time. Today almost every nation is a part of the qualification to play in the World Cup, and there are representatives from each continent. The World Cup is living up to its name and is really a championship for the world.

Betting on the World Cup

Source: britannica.com

As popular as it is, it has become very popular to bet on the World Cup. And with an estimated amount of 136 billion bettors at the Wold Cup it is the single most popular event to bet on. The betting industry has grown a great deal and you can engage in betting on any kind of sport. But football remains the most popular sport to bet on. Engaging in betting on the World Cup can be a bit complicated as there are so many betting lines to engage in.

Who will win the individual games, who will be the best in the group, and who will take the big trophy at the end. It is necessary to understand these different betting lines and the tournaments form before placing a bet on the World Cup matches. However doing so can be quite fun and engaging to watch even though your national team has not qualified.

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