If you search it for the word "football," Google returns results that are dominated by NFL sites. If you search it for specific football topics—football tactics, say, or economics—Google returns results that jumble American and world football together. This is pure speculation, but since searching for "soccer" doesn't produce that kind of confusion, I wonder if convenience will eventually encourage more producers and consumers of online football coverage to start calling the game by its American name. You can already see some sign of this, I think, in sites that regularly use both terms ("Soccerlens: Football News You Can Trust"), presumably in part to maximize their relevance to search engines.
It's true that American football pages don't feature so heavily in Google UK or Google Canada searches—but do most people use those country-specific sub-sites? Is there a chance that the internet will make "soccer" the preferred name for the sport in the future, or at least diminish its identification with American indifference? If so, it's interesting that the current trend in America is to call the game "futbol," largely as a way of reaching out to the world game and escaping the national stereotype.
"Nah mate, not soccer. And for fuck sake stop saying soccer!"
My last visit to the UK, most times we would pull up google, it would do some IP Address magic and send us straight to Google UK.
You think that's bad? Try looking up "football" in Wikipedia. You'll never look at any of these games the same way again.
agree with will. google by default pulls up the localized version of the site, depending on the counntry youre in.
Well, it didn't get the "reckless speculation" tag for nothing.
How about just calling it 'association football'? You'll sound a tad pompous at first, but then maybe you could, sort of, shorten it. Like call it, 'assoc football' or just 'assoc', or perhaps, 'soccie'? Or something even more catchy than that?
How about "shun-fo" (association + football)? It unites the hemispheres and also has the bonus of sounding like a martial art. I need to think about this.
I have been trying to popularize the name "helmetball" for the North American variant…so far without much success. It may be an idea ahead of its time.
See, I think that's too logical. We might have more luck calling soccer "helmetball," and either letting American football keep its name or rebranding it as "association baseball".
'helmetball' it is then.
i personally hate when people think there so clever and say lets play football then look at me, knowing i love soccer, and say or should we play futbol? the only thing i can relate futbol vs. soccer too is your soccer vs. football. unless your mexican, then its chill
I have heard Throwball, Gridiron, Armo(u)red Wankball (Depending on just how British one would like to be that day), Helmetball, Rugby for Sissies (and other, even more homophobic plural nouns), and probably one or two more I can't remember. All of which, in my opinion, are a bit unfair to my favorite team-sport-as-metaphor-for-warfare. Dave's blog over on the sidebar is a great read on comparative football-ology.