Because of this thing called "vernacular language".
All sports that back in the 19th century that involved a ball and not using a horse (but your feet) were called "football". You ran around doing something that involved a ball, so it was called football. American Football is actually properly refered to as "gridiron" football, because the field used is a gridiron. "Football" is actually referred to as "Association" Football and was called "soccer" as a French influenced abbreviation for the name, the name was used in the USA, Canada and UK up until about the 1980s, when the last two started calling it football instead. "Rugby" football is just known as "rugby" today.
So why did Americans call their sport "football" only? Simple: Popularity. Soccer and Rugby weren't anywhere nearly as popular as Football was at any point in American history. Instead of just calling it "gridiron football" and soccer as "association football" and rugby as "rugby football" it was much easier to just refer to the most popular one as "Football" or "Gridiron" for convenience. Obviously, American football wasn't as popular everywhere else. So other countries called their most popular football sport (Association aka soccer) "football" instead, again for convenience. So really all that happened is Americans kept calling it what they've always been calling it, while other countries called it what they called it. Just language barriers.
It's honestly not that big of an issue. Refer to it as "fútbol" or "footy" and all Americans (and the world) will understand what you're talking about.
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First off it's nothing personal. Most of the U. S. doesn't care for soccer. I watch Liverpool because my uncle is from Liverpool. People in the U. S. call it soccer because that's just what we grew up knowing it as. The same as if you watch an American TV show you're going to hear all kinds of things that you know one thing called something different. But simply where the rest of the world watches soccer. The number 1 sport in america is Football. American kids grow up watching football whether its NFL or College. They grow up playing backyard full contact football without pads. I wish American Football would get more popular around the world but you know what they say "How's it feel to want?"
I have a feeling you might have seen my post >.>... and I honestly have no idea. I am American but it never made sense to me. Handegg just makes me laugh so I call it that to mess with everyone who likes it.
Every place has its own quirks, America's got two Footballs.
handegg? that sounds like a game from elementary school.
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American (or gridiron) football possibly got it's name from the regulation size of the ball being a foot in length. A foot-long ball. Hence, football.
And soccer (named football for obvious reasons) didn't always used to be just a European sport, so the name here took a backseat to our football for the sake of avoiding confusion. You don't rename your native sport because of another that you didn't even play at the time, would you?Wtf is handegg?
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