Football refers to a number of sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball with the foot to score a goal. Unqualified, the word football is understood to refer to whichever form of football is the most popular in the regional context in which the word appears: association football (also known as soccer) in the United Kingdom and most of the non-English speaking world; gridiron football (specifically American football or Canadian football) in the United States and Canada; Australian rules football or rugby league in different areas of Australia; Gaelic football in Ireland; and rugby football (specifically rugby union) in New Zealand.[1][2] These different variations of football are known as football codes. Various forms of football can be identified in history, often as popular peasant games. Contemporary codes of football can be traced back to the codification of these games at English public schools in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.[3][4] The influence and power of the British Empire allowed these rules of football to spread to areas of British influence outside of the directly controlled Empire,[5] though by the end of the nineteenth century, distinct regional codes were already developing: Gaelic Football, for example, deliberately incorporated the rules of local traditional football games in order to maintain their heritage.[6] In 1888, The Football League was founded in England, becoming the first of many professional football competitions. During the twentieth century, several of the various kinds of football grew to become among the most popular team sports in the world.[7]

According to FIFA the competitive game cuju is the earliest form of football for which there is scientific evidence.[20] It occurs namely as an exercise in a military manual from the third and second centuries BC.[20] Documented evidence of an activity resembling football can be found in the Chinese military manual Zhan Guo Ce compiled between the 3rd century and 1st century BC.[21] It describes a practice known as cuju (??, literally "kick ball"), which originally involved kicking a leather ball through a small hole in a piece of silk cloth which was fixed on bamboo canes and hung about 9 m above ground. During the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD), cuju games were standardized and rules were established.[citation needed] Variations of this game later spread to Japan and Korea, known as kemari and chuk-guk respectively. Later, another type of goal post emerged, consisting of just one goal post in the middle of the field.[citation needed] The Japanese version of cuju is kemari (??), and was developed during the Asuka period.[citation needed]This is known to have been played within the Japanese imperial court in Kyoto from about 600 AD. In kemari several people stand in a circle and kick a ball to each other, trying not to let the ball drop to the ground (much like keepie uppie). The game appears to have died out sometime before the mid-19th century. It was revived in 1903 and is now played at a number of festivals.[citation needed] There are a number of references to traditional, ancient, or prehistoric ball games, played by indigenous peoples in many different parts of the world. For example, in 1586, men from a ship commanded by an English explorer named John Davis, went ashore to play a form of football with Inuit (Eskimo) people in Greenland.[22] There are later accounts of an Inuit game played on ice, called Aqsaqtuk. Each match began with two teams facing each other in parallel lines, before attempting to kick the ball through each other team's line and then at a goal. In 1610, William Strachey, a colonist at Jamestown, Virginia recorded a game played by Native Americans, called Pahsaheman.[citation needed] On the Australian continent several tribes of indigenous people played kicking and catching games with stuffed balls which have been generalised by historians as Marn Grook (Djab Wurrung for "game ball"). The earliest historical account is an anecdote from the 1878 book by Robert Brough-Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, in which a man called Richard Thomas is quoted as saying, in about 1841 in Victoria, Australia, that he had witnessed Aboriginal people playing the game: "Mr Thomas describes how the foremost player will drop kick a ball made from the skin of a possum and how other players leap into the air in order to catch it." Some historians have theorised that Marn Grook was one of the origins of Australian rules football.

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players each on a field at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. The game is played by 120 million players in many countries, making it the world's second most popular sport.[1][2][3] Each team takes its turn to bat, attempting to score runs, while the other team fields. Each turn is known as an innings. The bowler delivers the ball to the batsman who attempts to hit the ball with his bat away from the fielders so he can run to the other end of the pitch and score a run. Each batsman continues batting until he is out. The batting team continues batting until ten batsmen are out, or a specified number of overs of six balls have been bowled, at which point the teams switch roles and the fielding team comes in to bat. In professional cricket the length of a game ranges from 20 overs per side to Test cricket played over five days. The Laws of Cricket are maintained by the International Cricket Council (ICC) and the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) with additional Standard Playing Conditions for Test matches and One Day Internationals.[4] Cricket was first played in southern England in or before the 16th century. By the end of the 18th century, it had developed to be the national sport of England. The expansion of the British Empire led to cricket being played overseas and by the mid-19th century the first international match was held. ICC, the game's governing body, has 10 full members.[5] The game is most popular in Australasia, England, the Indian subcontinent, the West Indies and Southern Africa.

Considered by many one of the best strikers of all time, in 2007 he was named in the greatest ever starting eleven by France Football magazine and in 2004 was named in the FIFA 100 list of the greatest living players compiled by Pelé. He was inducted Into the Brazilian Football Museum Hall of Fame in 2006. In February 2011, Ronaldo announced his retirement from football.[9] Ronaldo played for Brazil in 98 matches, scoring 62 goals, and is the second highest goalscorer for his national team. Aged 17, he was a part of the Brazilian squad that won the 1994 FIFA World Cup. At the 1998 World Cup he received the Golden Ball for player of the tournament in helping Brazil reach the final where he suffered a convulsive fit hours before the defeat to France. He won a second World Cup in 2002 where he scored twice in the final, and received the Golden Boot as top goalscorer. During the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Ronaldo scored his 15th World Cup goal which was a World Cup record. Having suffered a string of serious injuries throughout his career, Ronaldo retired on 14 February 2011, citing pain and hypothyroidism as the reasons for his premature retirement.[10] Since 2000, Ronaldo has been a United Nations Development Programme Goodwill Ambassador, concerned with helping move the world against poverty.[11] In January 2013 he was named one of the six Ambassadors of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.[12]

Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima (locally: [?o?nawðu ?lwi? n??za?ju d? ???m?]; born 18 September 1976[2]) commonly known as Ronaldo, is a retired Brazilian footballer. Popularly dubbed "the phenomenon", he is considered by experts and fans to be one of the greatest football players of all time.[3][4][5][6][7] He is one of only four players to have won the FIFA World Player of the Year award three times or more, along with Zinedine Zidane, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.[8] He also won the Ballon d'Or twice, in 1997 and again in 2002.