By bmlee18
Recently, I joined my college's soccer team, and quickly realized a few things:
- My body has rusted after years of limited physical exercise, mostly contained to short, breathless sprints to lectures and heavy lifting of groceries. This probably explains the soreness that permeated my body and the injury to my ankle that I sustained after the very first match.
- Despite this, the pure joy of challenging my stamina, celebrating the spirit of teamwork, and participating in what may very well be the greatest game ever invented.
- The ample differences between British and American terminologies regarding the game, which I explain below.
Football vs. Soccer
Undoubtedly, the most conspicuous difference between the American and British understanding of the sport would be what constitutes its legitimate name. Is it soccer? Or is it football? I would have to say that the latter probably makes more sense, given that the entirety of the world knows the sport to be football. And as someone originally from outside of the US and the UK and fully cognisant of what makes sense when learning English as a second language, putting "foot" and "ball" together far outweighs "soccer" in simplicity and logic. Ironically, you can't really blame the Americans for refusing to call the game anything other than soccer, since the origins of the word points to the Brits as the perpetrators. The Brits had coined the term "association rules football" (which evolved to be "soccer") to distinguish from other forms of the game such as "rugby rules football." They later abandoned the term as it became too "American," and now the Americans think of football as a game requiring heavy padding and bulgy helmets, and an essential element to making legendary movies like Remember the Titans and The Blindside.
Pitch vs. Field
In the US, a great pitch means the umpire shouting, "1, 2, 3... You're out!" Out you go from the baseball field. In the UK, a great pitch means a beautiful, lush, green, and slightly dewy soccer field. Therefore, our practices are held on the "football pitch," meaning that I should, at least for the next six months, disassociate the term "pitch" to mean a lightning-speed curveball headed straight for my face.
Boots vs. Cleats
When you say "Boots," I'm either thinking about (1) the fashionable knee-high shoes that you wear on cold and/or rainy days, or (2) the British pharmacy and beauty store that Americans would best understand as being the "CVS" or "Walgreens" of the UK. I am most certainly not thinking about "boots" as the shoes with the little pointy protrusions on the sole that are worn when playing soccer. Hence, when entering my college's clubhouse, I totally misread the sign with the formidable warning of: "DO NOT ENTER WITH YOUR BOOTS ON!" Wanting to abide by this rule, I took off the black winter boots I was wearing and slipped on my bright orange cleats. Yep. The very thing I was not supposed to do.