Reasons Why Football is the Most Popular Sport in the World.

Every time I get to watch a World Cup, I ask myself the question: What makes soccer so popular? (or football, as it is correctly named by the whole world except the US). The last World cup (Russia 2018) was viewed by more than 4 billion people! I don’t know if you’ve realized that the world population is nearly 8 billion people. This means that more than half of the world’s population watched soccer’s greatest event. So, why is soccer the most popular sport in the world? There are a lot of factors, that should be considered, but easily the most important one is soccer’s decentralization, meaning that is played globally instead of just in one region. Other factors, like its low cost to play and simplicity, significantly contribute to making it even more popular. Sports, in general, awaken passion in people, but there are a couple of things that make soccer different from other sports like baseball, basketball, or American football that make it significantly more popular in the whole world. After reading this article, you should be able to understand why soccer is so popular around the world, except in the US, and hopefully, if you don’t practice it, you may want to give it a try. What makes soccer so popular? It is incredible how people around the world live the sport of soccer as if it was a religion. Soccer is the only sport in the world that can paralyze entire cities and countries for one single game. Explaining why people feel so passionate about this sport is very hard to, even for a soccer fan like me. Thankfully, I came up with a list of 17 factors that make “The Beautiful Game” the most popular sport in the world: Inexpensive One of the most important reasons soccer is so popular is that it is so cheap to play. Sometimes you don’t even need a soccer ball. I grew up playing soccer with anything we found: maybe it was a can from a soda or a plastic bottle from a juice someone bought, other times we used a “tetra-pack”. Any of these items would be a perfect soccer ball. We would use two objects to mark the goal. These objects could be rocks, shoes, sticks, or anything visible. Some kids played with their sneakers, in sandals, or even barefooted. The great thing is that we use to play anywhere we had space: in the streets, in the school’s recess, in an empty lot. What makes soccer so great is that you can use your imagination to play anywhere in the world without needing to spend a single penny. No matter the situation, you can do anything to play the game, the only limit is your imagination. I remember watching a video of African kids that used plastic bags and pieces of thread to make their soccer balls. Watching how those kids that were so happy playing with their own-made soccer ball made me feel so emotional about how many beautiful things' soccer can accomplish with so little. I recommend you read this article from “Daily Mail” which shows pictures of how African kids use anything they have to play the game they love. However, if you want to play with a real soccer ball, you can find relatively cheap and durable soccer balls anywhere for only 10 dollars. Now, just imagine how many people can play with just 1 ten-dollar soccer ball. This is what my friends and I used to do in the streets or the school, we would play every day with the ball of one of our friends and take care of it as if it was ours. We’re talking about playing soccer for fun, but if you want to play competitive soccer for a club or a team you can read my article “Costs of playing club soccer” to find out how much it costs to play soccer at a competitive level, and how to play for less money as most professional soccer players did. When talking about soccer gear, the advantage is that the only thing you’ll need to play soccer is a pair of soccer cleats and shin guards. Uniforms and soccer balls are usually provided by the team. As in everything, you’ll find cheap and expensive gear, you can read my recommended gear section to find the best soccer gear out there for the price. Overall, soccer is considerably cheaper and requires less gear to play than other sports like football (shoulder pads, helmet, mouthpiece, etc. baseball (bats, baseball gloves, baseball cleats, etc. golf, or tennis, which makes it more likely to be more popular. Can be played anyhow anywhere As I said before, the game can be played anywhere where there is space. Soccer being an outdoor sport is something that gives it a huge edge over other sports. But something even better is that soccer is one of the few sports that exists that can be played either outdoors or indoors, meaning that the game can be played anywhere. Most of the time you’ll only need a soccer ball. However, a portable soccer goal can be a total game-changer and a smart purchase. To prevent wasting money just go to my Recommended Gear page and take a look at the ones I recommend. Another thing that gives the game of soccer an advantage over other sports is the flexibility it offers. You can play soccer 11 vs 11 styles on a full-size soccer field. You can also play 5 vs 5 on an indoor court or the beach. Playing 7 vs 7 is also possible in a turf field. FIFA has official tournaments for different playing styles of soccer like FIFA World Cup (official men 11 vs 11 tournaments), Indoor Soccer or Futsal World Cup (5 vs 5 tournaments), Beach Soccer World Cup (5 vs 5 soccer played in sand), as well as other informal Street soccer and freestyle tournaments. What makes soccer so popular and so played widely around the world is the flexibility the game has to adapt to your needs and preferences. If you don’t like one form of soccer you could play another and so on. A sport that can be played in any way and whatever place possible will probably be very popular, just like soccer. Focused on the player In comparison to other sports, soccer is a game that is more player-focused than others. A game in which you can depend more on individual plays from a single-player than other team sports. It allows the players to shine, which feels very pleasant for anyone. In comparison to American football, for example, the game is guided by the coach which calls every play that the team will make and the players have to follow each one of his instructions. In soccer, the players have to follow the coach’s instructions too, but if the team’s strategy is not working correctly, one player can always change the game with an individual play by himself.