Football seems the most popular sport entertainment in the world. There are many different form of this game.
The Ancient China is a forefather of football.
The earliest form of the game in Medieval Europe was played in England around 1100 A.D.
There were numerous attempts to abolish football. But all of these attempts were unsuccessful.
The modern game first developed in England in the end of 19th century. FIFA was founded in 1904 to run international competitions.
The modern game is played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with a goal at each end. Players pass the ball to each other by kicking or heading it, with the aim being to score goals by getting the ball into the opponent's goal. The game lasts for two 45-minute halves, and the team scoring the most goals wins. It's rather simple and understandable.
Since 1930 every four years, millions of people all over the world gather in front of TV screens at all hours of the day and night. They watch the FIFA World Champions football tournament, more popularly known as "the World Cup" or "the World Cup Finals".
Only 32 teams compete in the World Cup Finals, but because of over 200 national teams wanting to compete, qualification tournaments are necessary.
The Finals are in two stages: the "group stage" followed by the "knockout stage". Teams that lose a match in the group stage still have a chance of staying in the competition, but teams that lose a match in the knockout stage are eliminated.
Since the World Cup was first held in 1930, Brazil — the only team to have competed in every tournament — has won five times The top goal scorer at the World Cup is Germany's Miroslav Klose with 16 goals.
Fifa also organizes several other international football tournaments, including the FIFA Women's World Cup youth World Cups for players under the ages of 17 and 20, the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup and so on.
