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Soccer in United States is a popular spectator sport for certain demographics

Oneida Football Club has been named as the first soccer club in the United States but there is still discussion on what rules the club used, and it broke up within the space of a few years.

According to Encyclop?dia Britannica, the club is often credited with inventing the "Boston Game", which both allowed players to kick a round ball along the ground, and to pick it up and run with it.

The first U.S. match known to have been inspired by FA rules was a game between Princeton University and Rutgers University on November 6, 1869, which was won by Rutgers 6-4. The FA rules were followed in the Princeton-Rutgers contest: participants were only allowed to kick the ball and each side had 25 players. Other colleges emulated this development, but all of these were converted to rugby by the mid-1870s and would soon become famous as early bastions of American football

The earliest examples of governance in the sport started in 1884, when the American Football Association (AFA) was incarnated. The AFA sought to standardize rules for the local soccer teams based in the Northeastern United States, particularly in northern New Jersey and southern New York state. By 1886, the AFA had spread in influence into Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.

Within a year of its founding, the AFA organized the first non-league cup in American soccer history, known as the American Cup. For the first dozen years, clubs from New Jersey and Massachusetts dominated the competition. It would not be until 1897 that a club from outside those two states won the American Cup. Philadelphia Manz brought the title to Pennsylvania for the first time. Due to internal conflicts within the AFA, the cup was suspended in 1899, and it was not resumed until 1906.

Early soccer leagues in the U.S. mostly used the name "football," for example: theAmerican Football Association (founded in 1884), the American Amateur Football Association (1893), the American League of Professional Football (1894), the National Association Foot Ball League (1895), and the Southern New England Football League (1914). Common confusion between the terms "American football" and "association football" eventually led to a more domestic widespread use of the term "soccer" to regard association football. Originally seen as a British slang term for "association ", the use of "soccer" began appearing in the late 1910s and early 1920s. A noticeable example was the American Soccer League (ASL), which formed in 1919. The governing body of the sport in the U.S. did not have the word soccer in its name until 1945, when it became the United States Soccer Football Association. It did not drop the word football from its name until 1974, when it became the United States Soccer Federation, often going simply as U.S. Soccer.

In October 1911, a competing body, the American Amateur Football Association (AAFA) was created. The association quickly spread outside of the Northeast and created its own cup in 1912, the American Amateur Football Association Cup.

The conflicts within the AFA led to a movement to create a truly national body to oversee American soccer. In 1913, both the AAFA and AFA applied for membership in FIFA, the international governing body for soccer. Drawing on both its position as the oldest soccer organization and the status of the American Cup, the AFA argued that it should be the nationally recognized body. Later that year, the AAFA gained an edge over the AFA when several AFA organizations moved to the AAFA.

What is now the United States Soccer Federation was originally the United States Football Association, formed on April 5, 1913. On April 5, 1913, the AAFA reorganized as the United States Football Association (USFA), presently known as the United States Soccer Federation. FIFA quickly granted a provisional membership and USFA began exerting its influence on the sport. This led to the establishment of the National Challenge Cup, which still exists as the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, that fall. The National Challenge Cup quickly grew to overshadow the American Cup. However, both cups were played simultaneously for the next ten years. Declining respect for the AFA led to the withdrawal of several associations from its cup in 1917. Further competition came in 1924 when USFA created the National Amateur Cup. That spelled the death knell for the American Cup. It played its last season in 1924.

During the days of the ASL, the league was seen as widely popular, and considered to be the second most popular sports league in the United States, only behind Major League Baseball.[citation needed] However, internal debates between the USFA and ASL led to a known "soccer war" and the demise of both the league and the sport in the United States, entering a prolonged time of obscurity.

Two more soccer leagues were started in 1967, the United Soccer Association and the National Professional Soccer League. These merged to form the North American Soccer League in 1968, which survived until 1984.

The NASL also ran an indoor league in the latter years.[5] Indoor soccer was a great success in the 1980s and 1990s, in part due to the effort of the NASL.[citation needed] When the NASL (both outdoor and indoor) folded, other leagues, including the Major Indoor Soccer League stepped in to meet the demand. Twenty-five years hence, the latest version of the MISL folded, and was replaced by theNational Indoor Soccer League, the Professional Arena Soccer League, and the Xtreme Soccer League.

Interest in soccer within the United States has grown rapidly starting in the 1990s. This has been attributed to the fact that the 1994 FIFA World Cup was played in the United States, the first time the event was held in the U.S. This won the sport more attention from both the media and casual sports fans. The tournament was successful, with record average attendance of 68,991, a record which still stands today.

As part of the United States' bid to host the 1994 World Cup, U.S. Soccer pledged to create a professional outdoor league for the first time since the collapse of the NASL a decade earlier. That effort culminated in the launch of Major League Soccer in 1996, which helped develop American players in a way that was not possible without a domestic league. Many of these players competed in the2002 FIFA World Cup, where the United States beat archrivals Mexico in the Round of 16, before losing to Germany in the quarterfinals.

In recent years, many top-division European clubs have elected to spend portions of their pre-season schedule traveling to and scheduling matches in the United States. Clubs such as La Liga champions Real Madrid, English giants Chelsea FC and Liverpool FC, and Serie A side AS Roma have elected to spend their pre-seasons stateside. Aside from being highly attended events for U.S. stadiums, these pre-season fixtures are growing the game in the United States, and allowing American fans a chance to see the biggest teams and players in world soccer today, live and in person.

Despite the growth of men's and women's professional soccer in the United States in the last few decades, by far the largest category of soccer in the United States, at least in terms of participation, is boys' and girls' youth soccer. Though organized locally by organizations all over the United States, there are three main youth soccer organizations working nationwide through affiliated local associations. The United States Youth Soccer Association boasts over three million players between the ages of five and 19, whileAmerican Youth Soccer Organization has more than 300,000 players between the ages of four and 19. Finally, the USL offers a number of youth leagues, including the Super-20 League and the Super Y-League, which have almost 1,000 teams and tens of thousands of players from the ages of 13 to 20. This makes soccer one of the most played sports by children in the United States.

In recent decades, more and more youth sports organizations have turned to soccer as either a supplement to or a replacement for American football in their programs.[citation needed] This is primarily for economic reasons, as cash-strapped programs find it more difficult to justify the high costs of American football, due to the large amount of expensive equipment required, while at the same time the insurance risks associated with American football are far greater. Simultaneously, with increased urbanization, American high schools have grown to the point where most offer both sports in their fall sports seasons.[citation needed] Due to the rising number of youths playing, the term soccer mom is used in American social, cultural and political discourse, broadly referring to a middle- or upper-middle class woman working and having school-age children.

The professional first-division league in the United States is Major League Soccer (MLS), which as of 2012 has 16 teams in the U.S. and 3 in Canada, with MLS expansion planning on adding a 20th team by 2016. With careful cost controls, soccer-specific stadiums, and limited expansion, some MLS clubs became profitable for the first time in the mid 2000s, and Forbes magazine found that three clubs were already valued at $40 million or more, with the Los Angeles Galaxy worth $100 million. The league's 2007 and 2009 expansion to Toronto and Seattle, respectively, have proven highly successful, with league-leading ticket and merchandise sales, capped by a sold-out attendances for friendlies against Real Madrid of Spain and Chelsea of England.

Professional soccer has been less popular in the United States than most other parts of the world. Major League Soccer, the United States' professional first-division league, is not, in general, as well-attended as the major leagues of American football and baseball. However, a 2012 attendance review of shows that Major League Soccer is enjoying higher per game attendance than basketball and ice hockey.Note that this can be attributed to the larger seating capacities of soccer stadiums as opposed to basketball/hockey arenas.

Although MLS is also much younger than most other countries' first divisions, and has 19 teams in 2012, it is already the 12th most-attended premier division in the entire world.[9] In 2006 MLS broke its all-time record for attendance at a regular-season match, which saw 92,650 spectators fill the Los Angeles Coliseum on a Sunday in August; although that claim is somewhat misattributed to the MLS game as it was one of two games played that night, the second being a match between two very popular clubs from the Spanish-speaking world: Spain's Barcelona and Mexico's Guadalajara. On August 1, 2009, a friendly match between the Los Angeles Galaxyand Barcelona at the Rose Bowl, drew a crowd of 93,137 fans. The last time a soccer match drew that many people in the United States was during the 1994 FIFA World Cup.

Since 2007, with the arrival of international superstars such as David Beckham and Thierry Henry, and the Mexican idol Cuauhtémoc Blanco, attendance records for specific MLS teams and stadiums continue to rise.

The United Soccer Leagues (USL) operates five leagues in all, spanning the lower divisions of men's professional soccer, as well as women's soccer and youth soccer.

The second-tier league is a new incarnation of the North American Soccer League. This league was formed in late 2009, with plans to launch in the 2010 season, by disgruntled team owners from the former second-level league, the USL First Division, after Nike sold its stake in the latter league's parent corporation, the United Soccer Leagues (USL). U.S. Soccer refused to sanction either the First Division or the new NASL for 2010, and the two groups eventually agreed to unite for 2010 only under the banner of USSF Division 2, run directly by U.S. Soccer and including teams from both leagues. U.S. Soccer initially sanctioned the new NASL in November 2010, revoked its sanctioning in January 2011 due to financial issues surrounding the ownership of several teams, and re-sanctioned it in February 2011. The NASL launched with eight teams—five on the U.S. mainland, one in Puerto Rico (a U.S. commonwealth that has its own national federation), and two in Canada. One of the Canadian teams left the NASL after the 2011 season to enter MLS; that team was replaced for 2012 by a U.S.-based team. In 2013, a new version of the New York Cosmos will join the NASL, with a team from Ottawa entering the following year.

Following the USL–NASL feud and a subsequent tightening of U.S. Soccer standards for owners of second-division teams, the USL folded its First and Second Divisions into a new third-level league, USL Pro, which launched in 2011. It began with 15 teams—11 on the U.S. mainland, three in Puerto Rico, and one in the Caribbean country of Antigua and Barbuda—but due to issues with the health and finances of two of the Puerto Rican owners, the Puerto Rican teams were dropped from the league shortly after the beginning of its first season. It now operates with 11 teams after one of the U.S.-based teams folded following the 2011 season; a new U.S.-based team is planned to enter the league in 2013.

Below USL Pro is the country's semi-professional fourth-division league, the USL Premier Development League, which has (as of the 2012 season) 64 teams in the U.S., nine in Canada, and one in Bermuda. Though the PDL does have some paid players, it also has many teams that are made up entirely or almost entirely of college soccer players who use the league as an opportunity to play competitive soccer in front of professional scouts during the summer, while retaining amateur status and NCAA eligibility.

The United States Adult Soccer Association governs amateur soccer competition for adults throughout the United States, which is effectively the amateur fifth division of soccer in the United States.

The men's national team competes in the FIFA World Cup and the FIFA Confederations Cup, in addition to the CONCACAF Gold Cupand other competitions by invitation.

The U.S. national team had some success in early FIFA World Cup tournaments. The U.S. finished third in the first ever World Cup in 1930, and played in the 1934 World Cup. The next World Cup participation came in the 1950 World Cup, where they upset England 1-0 in group play. After 1950, the USA did not return to the World Cup for another 40 years.

The fortunes of the U.S. national team changed in the 1990's, with the team participating in every World Cup since 1990. The USA hosted the 1994 World Cup, beating Colombia to reach the knockout rounds, before losing to Brazil in the round of sixteen. The team reached the quarter-finals of the 2002 World Cup by defeating its rival Mexico. The U.S. team also accomplished another first by winning its group at the 2010 World Cup.

The U.S. national team participated in the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup. The U.S. defeated #1 ranked Spain in the semifinals, before losing to Brazil 3-2 in the final 3-2.

On the regional stage, the national team has also improved, with a record up to 2009 of reaching the final of the biannual CONCACAF Gold Cup eight times since 1989, winning it four times, in 1991, 2002, 2005, and 2007

The women's national team played its first match on August 18, 1985. It competes in the FIFA Women's World Cup, the Summer Olympics, and the Algarve Cup, in addition to the CONCACAF Women's Gold Cup and other competitions by invitation. The United States women's team has been one of the most dominant in the history of women's soccer, having won two World Cups (in 1991 and1999, as well as runner-up once and three times in third), four Olympic gold medals (in 1996, 2004, 2008, and 2012), and eight Algarve Cups (in 2000, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011).

The United States has emerged as one of the best national teams in the world. They are, as of 2012, ranked first in the FIFA Women's World Rankings, have won two of the six FIFA Women's World Cups held thus far (in 1991 and 1999), and have also won gold medals in four of the five Olympic women's soccer tournaments held to date (1996, 2004, 2008, 2012)

Portrait Drawing Football Star Soccer Player