Sports Realm

Even though soccer is not the sport in the US, a brief history of soccer in the US is among the longest around, right next to those of the English or even the Scottish.

After the English attempted to form a set of rules for that bet on soccer, these were soon taken to the brand new World, where Americans learned to love this rising sport, right next to another game that grew strong roots in the US in those days: baseball. Actually, the American Football Association is the second oldest sports league in the USA, following the Major league baseball one.

Obviously, the history of soccer in US didn’t begin with a professional league though (in terms of what we call professional today). The American Football Association, began in 1884, would be a semi-professional competition involving New England and some Midwest areas and it was a rather chaotic environment to play soccer in, but nevertheless it was there and progressing with each year.

A parallel soccer organization, the American Amateur Football Association was founded around the same time frame and the two coexisted until 1913, when they merged into the US Football Association, the first fully professional soccer organization through the history of soccer in America.

The US football association (or USFA) was one of the first to become listed on FIFA and therefore, the United States team participated in early World Cups, although the game was beginning to become outshined by baseball or basketball.

With American football also increasing, the organization adopted a brand new name to prevent any confusion and called itself the United States Soccer Football Association. However, the United States soccer history would soon witness a new alternation in its governing body’s name in 1974, when the USSFA dropped “Football” from the tag and instead adopted the title of USA Soccer Federation, that is still used today

So many will wonder, if the history of soccer in the US starts out so early, how come soccer isn’t the main sport in USA? Well the simple truth is that the rather modest performances from the men’s national side in early stages within the 20th century, combined with high rise of baseball, basketball, football and hockey, resulted in the nation soon lost curiosity about soccer and since American kids had a lot of alternatives, soccer slowly went out of fashion.

However, using the increasingly good performances from the United States men’s soccer team and also the huge success from the women’s team (who were able to generate the very first trophies within the history of soccer in US and is still among the world powers hanging around today), soccer is climbing to its rightful place with increasingly more American kids favoring it in school as a start-up sport, things look bright for future years of us soccer.

This article has been written by the author,Eric James. Should you require anymore Soccer History please visit his Soccer Origin resources!