why did Americans call football soccer?

The word "soccer" is actually British.

Although many people think the name "soccer" was invented in America, it actually has British roots.

Early in the 1800s, several British institutions began to play their own versions of "football," a mediaeval game, all with various regulations.

Students at the University of Oxford started giving the various variations of the sport new names when they were created. Rugby football is known as "rugger," while association football is known as "Assoccer," which was later abbreviated to "soccer," according to History.

How "football" in America became known as "soccer"

When the sports gained popularity abroad, their many names spread throughout Britain and the rest of the world. According to Smithsonian Magazine, British fans eventually decided to refer to the game as "football" in the 1980s as a result of Americans using the name "soccer."

When rugby and association football were combined to produce gridiron football, a new sport was created in the United States.

According to Britannica, by 1945, most people started referring to the second sport as "football" and American association-football players began using the term "soccer" to distinguish between the two sports.

While referring to the most popular sport in the world as "soccer" is often seen as a sign of American ignorance, Britain is to blame for the fact that we don't refer to it as "football" like the rest of the world.

According to a 2014 research by University of Michigan professor Stefan Szymanski, the term "soccer" was created in Britain and stopped being used there only about 40 years ago.

The phrase "association football" was used in Britain for more than 200 years before the name "soccer" was coined.

A number of British universities began playing their own forms of "football" in the early 1800s, each with its own set of rules. These games were grouped under several organisations with various titles in order to standardise things across the nation.

"Rugby football" is a variation of the game you played with your hands. A different variation became known as "association football" after the Football Association was established in 1863 to promote the game, 15 years after the regulations were created at Cambridge.

Rugby football was abbreviated to "rugger" and eventually "rugby". "Soccer" was coined from "association football."

In the early 1900s, Americans created their own version of the game they simply named "football," when these two sports gained popularity across the Atlantic.

What was known as "gridiron" in Britain became "football" in America, while "association football" became "soccer" there.

The intriguing thing about this is that "soccer" was still commonly used in Britain for a significant portion of the 20th century. Szymanski discovered that "football" and "soccer" were "nearly interchangeable" in Britain between 1960 and 1980.

"After 1980, fewer British periodicals have used the word "soccer," and when it is, it typically alludes to an American setting. This fall appears to be a response to the rise in US usage, which appears to be connected to the NASL's peak around 1980."

Due to its American overtones, the majority of Britons ceased using the word "soccer," but UK broadcaster Sky Sports continued to use it to name their phenomenally popular TV programmes "Soccer Saturday" and "Soccer A.M."

Thus, if you're an American, calling it "soccer" is not incorrect.

Soccer is what the English called it.

The word "soccer" was developed by—gasp—the English.

This shocking information is a linguistic fact! The folks who name their £5 and £10 bills "fivers" and "tenners," respectively, and affectionately refer to Prince William as "Wills," are to blame for abbreviating "Association Football" to merely "Assoc."—which, when printed, appears to be pronounced "Assock." (The French Football Association in FIFA is known by the same name as this "Association Football" organisation!) At Oxford in late nineteenth-century England, adding the suffix "-er" to various words became popular. So, "soccer" was created.