American soccer traces its ancestry back to rugby, once brought to the United States by Europeans. The 1869 match between teams from Rutgers University and Princeton University in New Brunswick (New Jersey) is considered the first match in the history of American soccer, although the game itself still looked a lot like rugby. In 1874 Harvard University played a match based on rules developed there. With time soccer spread to other universities, where it still remains one of the main sports hobbies of students. In 1876 the College Football Association was founded. In the same year appeared the rules, developed by the “father of American soccer” Walter Camp: he proposed many of the fundamental provisions that defined the essence of the game.
Gradually soccer went beyond the walls of universities, and at the end of the 19th century it began to be cultivated as a professional sport. In the 1920s and 1930s, soccer boomed in the United States. Soccer became the number one sport in the country-and retains that status to this day.
The American Professional Football Association was founded in 1920. In 1922 it was renamed into the National Football League (NFL). In 1960 the American Football League (AFL) was formed, which was the only “alternative” league that could compete with the NFL. Ten years later the two leagues merged. The NFL is divided into the American and National Conferences, which in turn are divided into divisions based on geography. The league currently consists of 32 clubs with about 1,500 licensed players.
The NFL’s regular season and subsequent playoff series are the most popular of the many competitions in American soccer in the United States. It culminates in the Superbowl, where the winner takes home the Lombardi Trophy. For the first time such a final was held in 1967 – then winners of NFL and AFL championships took part in it. The first Super Bowl was won by the Green Bay team. Since 1970, the winners of the National and American Conference of the NFL take part in the Super Bowl. The match, traditionally held in late January (early February), is considered the main sports event of the year in the USA – and the most “televisible” of all one-day sports events in the world: according to the NFL, more than a billion viewers watch it. Because the winning team is proclaimed the previous year’s champion, to avoid confusion, each Super Bowl is given a number (in Roman numerals). The most frequent winners of the prestigious trophy were San Francisco and Dallas, 5 times each. Pittsburgh won it four times. (Among other holders of the Lombardi Trophy, it should be noted the teams “Chicago” and “Green Bay”, which each won the title of NFL champions for 6 times in the period before 1967).
American soccer is already cultivated in more than 40 countries around the world. The first (outside of North America) national federations for the sport emerged in the 1970s. Currently there are also regional associations.
Among the most important tournaments are the European Championship among national teams, the Eurobowl, played between the clubs that win (and vice-champions) national championships, and the EFFA Cup, an equivalent of the UEFA Cup (see FUTBOL). In Europe, there is also the NFL Europe, which includes 6 clubs from different countries.
The International Federation of American Football (IFFA), formed a little later than the EFFA, unites more than 20 national federations. It organizes the World Cup (since 1999) and other competitions.