Portal:Association football

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Association football, commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players each who mostly use their feet to kick an inflated ball around a pitch (playing field).

The objective of the game is to score more goals than the opposing team by moving the ball into the rectangular-framed goal which that team defends. 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.

Association football is played in accordance with the Laws of the Game, a set of rules that has been in effect since 1863 and maintained by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) since 1886. The game is played with a football that is 68–70 cm (27–28 in) in circumference. When the ball is in play, the players mainly use their feet, but may also use any other part of their body, except for their hands or arms, to control, strike, or pass the ball; the head, chest, and thighs are commonly used. Only the goalkeepers may use their hands and arms, but only within their own penalty area. Depending on the format of the competition, an equal number of goals scored may result in a draw being declared with 1 point awarded to each team, or the game may go into extra time or a penalty shoot-out. (Full article...)

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New Brompton F.C. (later Gillingham F.C.) in 1894.

Gillingham Football Club is an English professional football club based in the town of Gillingham, Kent, currently playing in the Football League One. The only Kent-based club in the Football League, they play their home matches at KRBS Priestfield Stadium.

The club was founded in 1893 and joined the Football League in 1920. They were voted out of the league in favour of Ipswich Town at the end of the 1937–38 season, but returned to it 12 years later after it was expanded from 88 to 92 clubs. Twice in the late 1980s they came close to winning promotion to the second tier of English football, but a decline then set in and in 1993 they narrowly avoided relegation to the Football Conference. Between 2000 and 2005, Gillingham were in the second tier of the English league for the only time in their history, achieving a club record highest league finish of eleventh place in 2002–03. (Full article...)

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Steve Bruce in 1992

Steve Bruce (born 31 December 1960) is an English football manager and former player. Born in Corbridge, Northumberland, he was a promising schoolboy footballer but was rejected by a number of professional clubs. He was on the verge of quitting the game altogether when he was offered an apprenticeship with Gillingham, and went on to play more than 200 games for the club before joining Norwich City in 1984.

In 1987, he moved to Manchester United, with whom he achieved great success, winning the Premier League, The Football Association (FA) Cup and the Football League Cup. He also became the first English player of the twentieth century to captain a team to The Double. Despite his success on the field, he was never selected to play for the England national team.

Bruce began his managerial career with Sheffield United, and spent short periods of time managing Huddersfield Town, Wigan Athletic and Crystal Palace before joining Birmingham City in 2001. He twice led Birmingham to promotion to the Premier League during his tenure of nearly six years, but resigned in 2007 to begin a second spell as manager of Wigan. (Full article...)

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CONMEBOL headquarters in Luque,
Paraguay, as seen in 2014

CONMEBOL or CSF (lit. 'South American Football Confederation') is the governing body of football in South America, and is responsible for organizing the continent's major international tournaments. It is the oldest of the six continental confederations of FIFA, and with 10 member associations, it has the fewest members of all the confederations. It is the only fully continental, land-based confederation, with no island members or members from other continents. CONMEBOL's headquarters are in Luque, Paraguay.

CONMEBOL national teams have won ten FIFA World Cups (Brazil five, Argentina three, and Uruguay two) and CONMEBOL clubs have won 22 Intercontinental Cups and four FIFA Club World Cups. Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay have won two Olympic gold medals each. (Full article...)

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... that football manager Darren Moore led Sheffield Wednesday to promotion even after they lost the first leg of their play-off semi-final 4–0?

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2014 FIFA World Cup

Credit: Agência Brasil

Brazil was chosen as the host of the 2014 FIFA World Cup on October 30, 2007. FIFA president Joseph Blatter's selection gave Brazil the honour of hosting the competition for a second time and it will be the first World Cup tournament to be held in South America since Argentina hosted in 1978.

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Things have taken time to get used to, the weather's not great and people seem to drink beer all the time, but there’s nowhere I’d rather be playing.

— Obafemi Martins, on settling into Newcastle

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The following are images from various association football-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Drawing of the first international game by artist William Ralston (from History of association football)
Image 2Japanese high-school girls playing football in their traditional hakama with one team wearing sashes (c. 1920) (from Women's association football)
Image 3A Welsh women's football team pose for a photograph in 1959 (from Women's association football)
Image 4The Urawa Red Diamonds Ladies (from Women's association football)
Image 5North team of the British Ladies' Football Club, 1895 (from Women's association football)
Image 6Florida State vs North Carolina, 2005 (from Women's association football)
Image 7An early draft of the original hand-written 'Laws of the Game' drawn up on behalf of The Football Association by Ebenezer Cobb Morley in 1863 on display at the National Football Museum, Manchester. (from Laws of the Game (association football))
Image 8FC de Rakt DA1 (2008/2009) (from Women's association football)
Image 9Goalkeeper Zahra Khajavi of the Iran women's national football team (from Women's association football)
Image 10The official record attendance for a women's football match was set at Camp Nou on 22 April 2022, with 91,648 people watching Barcelona defeat Wolfsburg 5–1 (pictured). (from Women's association football)
Image 11The Royal Engineers team who reached the first FA Cup final in 1872 (from History of association football)
Image 12Sheffield F.C. (here pictured in 1876) is the oldest association club still active, having been founded in 1857 (from History of association football)
Image 13Striker Cristiana Girelli and coach Rita Guarino of Juventus in 2019. Juventus is one of the most storied and successful football clubs in Italy. (from Women's association football)
Image 14When first introduced in 1891, the penalty was awarded for offences within 12 yards of the goal-line. (from Laws of the Game (association football))
Image 15United States' Abby Wambach plays off a corner kick against Canada.
Image 16Marta of Brazil is the all-time leading scorer of the senior FIFA World Cups. (from Women's association football)
Image 17Harrow School team of 1867 (from History of association football)
Image 18Representation of a football match from the book Athletics and football, 1894. The goal has no net (from History of association football)
Image 19From 1866 to 1883, the laws provided for a tape between the goalposts (from Laws of the Game (association football))
Image 20Mia Hamm (left) battles with German defender Kerstin Stegemann (from Women's association football)
Image 21Arsenal after winning the Women's FA Cup in 2007 (from Women's association football)
Image 22Old Etonians v Blackburn Rovers match. Illustration by S.T. Dadd, 1882 (from History of association football)
Image 23Olympique Lyonnais vs Paris Saint-Germain (from Women's association football)
Image 24Players fighting for the ball during the match between Germany and Norway in UEFA Women's Euro 2009 in Tampere, Finland (from Women's association football)
Image 25Megan Rapinoe speaks on equal pay in March 2021. (from Women's association football)
Image 26Portland Thorns traveling supporters at Seattle's Memorial Stadium (from Women's association football)
Image 27Iran vs Turkey in 2010 Youth Olympics (from Women's association football)
Image 28Sam Kerr with Australia during the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup quarterfinal against Japan in Edmonton, 2015 (from Women's association football)

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The 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup was the eighth edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial international Women's football championship contested by 24 women's national teams representing member associations of FIFA. It took place between 7 June and 7 July 2019, with 52 matches staged in nine cities in France, which was awarded the right to host the event in March 2015, the first time the country hosted the tournament. The tournament was the first Women's World Cup to use the video assistant referee (VAR) system. This was the second and last edition with 24 teams before expanding to 32 teams for the 2023 tournament in Australia and New Zealand.

The United States entered the competition as defending champions after winning the 2015 edition and successfully defended their title, with a 2–0 victory over the Netherlands in the final. In doing so, they secured their record fourth title and became the second nation, after Germany, to have successfully retained the title. Unlike Germany, however, this victory held a distinction as the United States won both 2015 and 2019 tournaments under one manager, Jill Ellis. It was the first time in 81 years since Vittorio Pozzo did so for the Italian men's team at the 1934 and 1938 FIFA World Cups. (Full article...)

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... that a team including bricklayers, assistant bank managers and insurance clerks defeated Coventry City in the third round of the FA Cup in 1989? (5 April 2021)
... that some of the Sheffield Wednesday team participated in a conga on the M4 motorway after winning the 2005 Football League One play-off Final? (19 February 2021)
... that Blackburn Rovers won the Premier League three seasons after winning the 1992 Football League Second Division play-off Final? (18 January 2021)
... that Duncan Jupp scored his first league goal for more than a decade in the 2005 Football League Two play-off Final? (2 April 2021)
... that, such was his popularity with the club's supporters, when footballer Hughie Ferguson was sold by Motherwell F.C., the local steel works closed to allow workers to wave him off? (31 March 2021)
... that Icelandic footballer Þórdís Hrönn Sigfúsdóttir has had to self-isolate on four occasions during the COVID-19 pandemic? (18 March 2021)