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In the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter at all if a country calls it soccer or football. Personally, I like the word soccer more when speaking English. I just never understood why American Football is actually called football...its is more like "handball".

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American football is an evolution of rugby, which is properly "rugby football." Rugby football started the "picking up and carrying the ball" thing.

The more interesting question is why rugby football is called football. But I guess, in modern parlance, it often isn't.

One theory is that it was a word for sports played on foot as opposed to horseback.

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