It’s called the beautiful game – soccer – or more accurately, football.
Yes, to most of us in North America, football is the sport where players wear protective gear and aim to throw or carry that oval-shaped leather ball into the end zones, or kick it through upright goal posts at either end of the field as seen in the CFL and NFL.
To international sports fans, football is the name more commonly given to what we know as soccer. For the sake of clarity, though, we’ll stick with soccer here.
It is probably the one professional sport that is truly played on an international scale (as a single sport that is – the Olympics is a whole other thing).
It’s hard not to notice when it is a World Cup year and frenzied fans in every city don their colours and crowd into their cultural centres to cheer on their countrymen.
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If you plan to get into the game, you might as well know what all the talk is about (literally, what the words mean).
The game officially kicks off this spring with a whole new level of inspiration for young athletes in the form of the Canadian Premier League (CPL).
The first ever contest for the new Valour FC out of Winnipeg plays in Langford, B.C. Wednesday. The team performs for their hometown fans Sat., May 4.
Across the country, fans are diving into seasons supporting their new local teams (which are actually referred to as clubs):
- Valour FC (Winnipeg)
- Calgary FC
- Forge FC (Hamilton)
- Edmonton FC
- HFX Wanderers FC (Halifax)
- Pacific FC (Langford/Victoria)
- York 9 FC (Toronto)
The new CPL is not to be confused with Major League Soccer (MLS), which is North America’s highest level of pro soccer with 24 teams, including three in Canada: Vancouver Whitecaps FC, Montreal Impact, and Toronto FC.
Valour isn’t Winnipeg’s first professional soccer team, but it’s the first in quite some time.
Winnipeg’s last foray into professional soccer was from 1987-1993 with the Winnipeg Fury of the now-defunct Canadian Soccer League (CSL).
The team, which briefly featured Winnipeg Blue Bombers kicker Troy Westwood, won the final CSL championship against the Vancouver 86ers in 1992.
If you find the fact that the game has multiple names confusing, you might want to know about some of the other things about the game that differ.
Soccer Terminology
In many professional sports, there are common terms we all take for granted – games are called games, playing surfaces are either arenas or fields, and die-hard fans buy seasons tickets. Soccer, however, has its own set of terms.
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For starters, games are called matches.
The surface the matches are played on is called a pitch, not a field as you otherwise call it.
While your kids’ soccer team might wear jerseys, the uniform worn by professional players is called a kit.
At the professional level (it’s different, of course, for mini-soccer and U9-12 levels), there will be 11 players on the field pitch.
However, where in hockey, you would see a set number of players in certain positions (three forwards and two defencemen), in this game, the configuration in which the forwards, defenders, and mid-fielders are laid out on the pitch can vary from team to team and match to match.
As for the positions themselves, the one in the net more commonly called a goalie is the net-minder or keeper.
The team member covering the middle portion of the field is not the centre, as you might expect, but rather the mid-fielder.
The player most responsible for scoring goals is know as the striker.
The game match is played in two halves, amounting to 90 minutes. However, in professional leagues, there may be additional time added after the clock runs out, called Injury Time.
The officiant in soccer is still called a referee or ref. But while in other sports, rough players might earn a penalty, in soccer, they receive a yellow or red card. A yellow card is a warning, while a red card results in the player being ejected from the rest of the match. Two yellow cards in one game equal a red card.
If you love the sport and intend to go to many home contests, you should buy a membership, otherwise known as season’s tickets.
And if you want to grab some gear to show your team pride, you can get shirts and hats like you do with other sports, but the item synonymous with soccer is the scarf.
There you have it – a primer, if you will, to decode some of the terms you might hear while getting into the game this soccer season and in seasons to come.
And don’t worry – if you forget and use the wrong term, your kids or some other dedicated fan will be sure to correct you.
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