Right now, the world is very focused on one thing.
The World Cup.
And it only comes once every four years.
So I couldn't miss the opportunity to make a podcast episode about this.
I'm your host, Oliver, and welcome back to the Easy English Podcast.
The best way to practice your English listening skills and to learn a lot of new vocabulary while listening to interesting topics.
At the moment, you might have heard a lot about football.
Everyone's talking about it and billions of people around the world are literally watching it on their TVs.
Fans are singing in the stadiums.
People from every country are sharing the tension, the joy and the passion for their country and for their team.
Even people that don't really like football are watching it.
And it might seem that football feels like the center of the world at the moment.
But have you ever wondered how this simple game actually started?
What is the history of it?
How did kicking a piece of leather into a net turn into such a huge event, such a huge sport that is played and enjoyed all over the world in 2021?
And the truth might actually surprise you.
Long before today's World Cup, old football wasn't such a clean, organized game with strict rules and players.
It was actually chaotic, violent. and quite at times a dangerous game which many kings wanted to.
So today we are going to learn a little bit about the history of football, how the game actually began.
And this ties into English because it began in England.
And the sport we know it today, or as we know it today, was formed and shaped in England as well.
So, before we get started, I want you to tell me that at the time you're listening, so this episode will come out about a week before the World Cup final.
I want you to tell me who you think will win the World Cup.
So you can comment in the description or in the comments below.
So who are you supporting?
Let me know who you are currently supporting to win the World Cup.
I want you to answer if you're on Spotify, we have a poll that you can vote in.
So let me know if you're watching the World Cup or not.
So you can vote and tell me, are you watching it?
But before we talk about today's episode, before we get into the history of football, I would like to teach you, or to sort of make you aware of five key words and phrases that are going to come up in today's episode.
So you want to be ready for these.
The first word is obsession.
Obsession.
And an obsession is an inability to stop thinking about something.
So for example, if you have an obsession about football, you can't stop thinking about it.
Maybe you can't stop talking about it.
Your focus is on it.
So when you have an obsession with something, you are focused on it.
And you might have noted, there we usually say you have an obsession with something rather than an obsession about.
So a lot of the times it's an obsession with.
Our second piece of key vocabulary for today is an adjective and it is chaotic.
Chaotic.
Chaotic means completely disordered confused and out of control.
When something is chaotic, it often doesn't have rules.
So we might describe a game without a lot of rules as chaotic.
There is KR.
Third piece of key vocabulary is to ban, to ban.
And to ban something is to officially forbid or stop it. using the law.
So, for example, if we ban smoking indoors, you can't smoke cigarettes or smoke inside, because we banned it.
Our fourth piece of key vocabulary, to evolve, to evolve.
And to evolve means to develop gradually from something simple through to something more complicated.
So you're becoming more complicated or changing over time.
And finally, tournament.
Tournament is our last word for today.
And a tournament is a sports competition involving a large number of players or teams.
That is what a tournament is.
And the World Cup is probably one of the most famous tournaments in the world or the Olympics, I guess, is a set of tournaments as well, which is also very famous.
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Let's get started into the topic and learn about how football actually started.
If you traveled back to England 700 years ago, you wouldn't recognize the game at all.
There were no pitches, so no football pitches with the grass.
There was no referees, and there were no team shirts.
They weren't cordoned.
But instead neighboring villages.
So villages that were close together played what historians call mob football.
And the rules were incredibly simple.
The ball, if you could even call it a ball, was an inflated pig's bladder.
So a part of a pig, basically, which was blown up with air.
And the goals were miles apart, so usually at the gates or the entrances of both villages.
They were very far from one another.
And actually, hundreds of people played the game at the same time.
Can you imagine?
Big, big groups of people.
And it was completely chaotic.
Players could kick, throw or carry the ball anywhere.
And fighting was completely normal and part of the strategy of the game.
And it caused so much damage to houses and property and so many broken bones and even people died that British kings and queens actually tried to ban the sport or the game over 30 times.
But the people loved it too much.
And the sport actually survived.
But of course it didn't stay the same.
Otherwise we would have a very different looking World Cup.
And of course the football that we know today is not very violent.
It is not very dangerous.
And football began to evolve.
It began to change and become more complicated with rules during the, And this change happened inside of very rich English boarding schools.
So these are schools that English students from rich families went to.
So families with lots of money, they send their children to these schools and they live there, they sleep there and they have quite an elite education.
And the schools wanted to use the game to teach discipline, to teach obeying and learning rules.
But every school had very different rules and they made up their own rules.
Some schools allowed players to catch the ball with their hands, while other schools banned use of hands completely.
So they banned using your hands to touch the ball altogether.
And this made schools playing matches together impossible.
It wasn't possible for them to play one another because the rules were different.
But finally, in 1863, a group of captains from the game met in London to create one set of rules for football.
And this meeting created what we call the Football Association.
And the schools they wanted to keep using their hands, or the schools that wanted to keep using their hands, they walked away and they created a separate sport that is called rugby.
And the schools that stayed agreed to focus only on the feet for this sport, and modern football was officially born.
Okay, so let's take a short break.
And while you have this break, I want you to remember my question.
I asked at the start and I want you to tell me who you think will win this World Cup, or who were you supporting or are supporting?
Let me know in the comments if you haven't already.
It's quite interesting because personally I'm not a massive fan of football, so I don't watch football regularly.
It's something that I prefer to watch for big events.
Because I'm not a massive football fan, I find it takes a lot of time to...
You know, learn about who the current top players are and what the current situation is in football for each team, for each country.
So I do find it easier to follow international football.
So when it's the Euros or the World Cup or something like that.
So I guess you could say I'm not a proper football fan.
I just like the international competitions.
And so I do enjoy watching these when they happen.
I wonder if you're similar or maybe you're a massive football fan.
You can let me know in the comments.
Okay.
So let's go back to this wonderful, very exciting history of football.
Once the rules became fixed in football, the game spread across the British Empire.
So sailors, railway workers and soldiers, they took the sport and the game that they played to South America, Europe and Africa.
They spread it worldwide.
And by 1930 the sport had grown so massive that football leaders decided it needed an ultimate crown.
They organized the very first Football World Cup tournament in Uruguay.
And only 13 teams traveled to take part.
And players crossed the Atlantic Ocean by boat to get there to even play.
But look at us now in 2026.
This tiny 13 team experiment has turned into a massive global tournament which unites nations and defines cultures.
And perhaps you might even say the game is quite unrecognizable to when it started.
But looking at that old history with how the game started with so much passion and joy, it really has kept that spirit.
When you can see how much passion and joy it brings people around the world today.
And is there really any other sport which does just that on a scale as large as football?
I would probably say no.
Football is definitely very unique in that way and in that aspect.
And perhaps the reason that football is the world's greatest obsession is its simplicity how simple the sport is.
You don't need expensive equipment, you don't need a fancy court or you don't need to be rich to play it.
All you need is a ball and some space to run.
You can make your own court, you can make your own goals and you just need a cheap football and your legs.
So remember, during this World Cup, when we're watching modern footballers some of the best footballers in the world competing and playing together, We aren't just watching this modern media event.
You're watching really a human tradition that has survived bans.
It's survived all of the centuries of history around it to become what the sport is today.
Okay.
So let's take a look at our comprehension questions for today.
I'm going to ask you some questions about the topic to see how much you understood.
So you can pause and try to answer.
The first question for today's episode is why did medieval kings and queens try to ban football?
They tried to ban football because the games were extremely violent.
They involved hundreds of people and they led to a lot of damage of properties towns, and they caused broken bones and people even died.
Question two.
Can you remember what major event or change happened to the sport in Izzo?
Teams met in London or the captains met in London to create the first official set of rules, and they were called the FA, the Football Association.
You might also add the sports split into two separate sports, football and rugby.
Question three.
Why did English boarding schools so the schools where those rich English kids went want to standardize the rules?
Why did they want one set of rules?
The reason was every school had a different set of rules which made it impossible to play matches together because they had different rules.
And a very difficult question for question four is a little bonus question.
Where was the very first World Cup held?
And the year was 1930.
Which country was it in?
So it was in Uruguay.
And bonus points if you remembered that there was only 13 countries that took part.
So that's everything for today's little history lesson about football.
I thought that this was a useful topic for the current time, just to get using English thinking about something that is very relevant right now.
And if you're watching or listening to this after the World Cup has already ended, then you know who wins.
If you're not, then I guess you'll be ready for this Sunday to see who is going to be in the final and watching who is going to win.
So let me know again in the comments, if you haven't already, who you want to win the World Cup.
Who do you think is going to win?
Maybe who you're supporting.
Just tell me. what you think about the current tournament.
And I always love to read and hear your opinions.
I've been your host Oliver, and I'm really happy that you've joined me today with this episode of the Easy English Podcast.
If you've been new it's the first time you've listened make sure that you follow and subscribe for more.
If you've been listening for a while, why not come over and support on the Easy English Patreon for bonus content, and it helps keep the show going.
Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the World Cup as well as having a wonderful, wonderful week.
Goodbye.
