Football and soccer

The 1998 World Cup soccer championships are underway, and as I write this, preparing to enter the second stage, or Round 16, to which the 16 best national teams will advance in the knockout phase of competition.

The game, which has become the world's most widely played sport was originally known as association football in England, after the creation of the Football Association (FA) in 1863, when a uniform set of rules was first established.

The Germans called it fuszball, the Dutch voetbal and the Spanish futbol. Non-European languages, with dissimilar roots, have understandably different-sounding names for the game. It is sepakbola in Indonesian and interestingly enough, sukka in Japanese -- after the American word soccer, no doubt.

People often wonder how this last term originated. According to reference books, U.S. reporters in the 19th century always used the full name -- associated football -- when referring to the European game. This differentiated it from their own (American) football, first played between universities in 1869.

Due to space constraints in newspapers, the game's name was often shortened to "assoc. football". Even that proved too long and in 1891 an exasperated American editor just invented the word soccer, derived from "(as)soc" and adding "cer".

The new term stuck and gained popularity, even as far away as Australia, where newspapers now use the word soccer to distinguish the worldwide game from their own Australian rules football.

Whether football or soccer, billions of fans around the world have been enjoying what anyone with access to world news can just call France 1998. My only regret is that football rowdyism has started to rear its ugly head again. English and German hooligans are within easy reach of the games venues in France.

Through reading the Indonesian newspapers, I can sense quite well that most of my countrymen favor the established football powers like Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Italy and England. It is sometimes a mystery to me why Indonesians, citizens of a developing country, do not side with one of soccer's deserving underdogs. Just for the record, my favorites are Nigeria, Chile, and Mexico -- in that order.

FARID BASKORO

Jakarta