足球的歷史、演變過程和現代足球的變化

History and development

See also: Football and History of football (soccer)
Games revolving around the kicking of a ball have been played in many countries throughout history. According to FIFA, the "very earliest form of the game for which there is scientific evidence was an exercise of precisely this skilful technique dating back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries B.C. in China."[3] In addition, the Roman games Harpastum may be a distant ancestor of football. Various forms of football were played in medieval Europe, though rules varied greatly by both period and location.
Whilst football has continued to be played in various forms throughout Britain, the English public schools (fee-paying schools) are widely credited with certain key achievements in the creation of modern football (association football and the rugby football games - rugby league and rugby union football). The evidence suggests that during the sixteenth century English public schools generally, and headmaster Richard Mulcaster in particular, were instrumental in taking football away from its violent "mob" form and turning it into an organised team sport that was beneficial to schoolboys. Therefore, the game became institutionalised, regulated, and part of a larger, more central tradition. Many early descriptions of football and references to it (e.g. poetry) were recorded by people who had studied at these schools, showing they were familiar with the game. Finally, in the 19th century, teachers and former students were the first to write down formal rules of early modern football to enable matches to be played between schools.
The rules of football as they are codified today are effectively based on the mid-19th-century efforts to standardise the widely varying forms of football played at the public schools of England. The first ever set of football rules were written at Eton College in 1815. The Cambridge Rules were a code of football rules, first drawn up at Cambridge University in 1848, which have influenced the development of Association football (also known simply as "football", or soccer) and subsequent codes.
The Cambridge Rules were written at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1848, at a meeting attended by representatives from Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester and Shrewsbury schools, but they were not universally adopted. During the 1850s, many clubs unconnected to schools or universities were formed throughout the English-speaking world to play various forms of football. Some came up with their own distinct codes of rules, most notably the Sheffield Football Club (formed by former pupils from Harrow) in 1857, which led to formation of a Sheffield FA in 1867. In 1862, John Charles Thring of Uppingham School also devised an influential set of rules.[4]
歷史


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1872年英格蘭與蘇格蘭隊之間的比賽的新聞插圖
關於足球運動的起源，一直眾說紛紜。有人認為足球起源於中國，到後來才傳到歐洲。但是更多人認為[來源請求]它是起源於中世紀時英國的一些農村。據史料記載[來源請求]，476年英國就已經有了類似現代足球的運動。
2004年初，經專家、學者的考證和國際足協的確認[3]，足球最早起源地應是中國，古代中國的蹴鞠就是現今足球運動的雛形。最早確切可信的文字記載這項運動者，當屬《戰國策》和司馬遷的《史記》，當時它以具有軍事性和娛樂性兩種面貌的活動而被記錄下來。其後經過改良令蹴鞠慢慢普及，到了隋唐時代蹴鞠和佛教一起傳到了日本，今日韓語及日語中仍可見稱足球為蹴球的用法，便是受到中國的影響。
現代足球運動公認為起源於19世紀中期的英國。最早的職業聯賽也在同地開始。1863年10月26日，世界上第一個正式的足球組織英格蘭足球協會在倫敦成立。此後，足球運動在全球廣泛傳播。1863年10月26日這一天也被作為現代足球運動的誕生日。
目前，歐洲與南美洲被公認為足球水準最高的兩大洲，主要的足球強國都集中在這兩個洲。也因此形成了兩大足球流派：歐洲足球流派和南美洲足球流派。歐洲足球流派技術簡練實用，注重配合，個人素質上力量強，速度快，作風硬朗，以英國、德國、義大利、法國、荷蘭等為代表。南美洲足球流派則講究個人技術，注重短傳配合和個人突破，以巴西、烏拉圭、阿根廷等為代表。



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足球運動在世界各地區的流行程度[4]