Home   >   Features   >   “Soccer’s coming home” – the history of an Americanized word

“Soccer’s coming home” – the history of an Americanized word

By on December 23, 2014

When the US Men’s National Team took the lead against Colombia early in their international friendly in November, the American Outlaws, located behind the goal in a small section of the Hammersmith End at Craven Cottage, it was the cue for the group that was already bashfully confident at the pre-game party, to start chanting. One that quickly came up: “Soccer’s coming home”, mocked “Football’s coming home”, an English chant. While the Outlaws understood the mockery behind the chant, most would have known precious little about the literal meaning behind the words.

Let’s backtrack: soccer being a distinctly American term for football, feelings for it overseas are broadly hostile. Saying it elsewhere in the world places a bright red flag upon your fandom, an obvious flaw, being American, since the country was late in adopting the sport, then modifying it to fit American culture in an American way. But as the USMNT have become better on the world stage, and Americans fans are usually a confident bunch, the word now has mixed feelings among Americans themselves. On one hand, you cannot help be slightly embarrassed by it, but on the other, its use makes Americans stand out, and when we are on top, that’s not such a bad thing. Like that moment in Fulham, Americans are also proud that the sport is their own, along with the word “soccer.”

Yet the perception that it is an American term, however, is incorrect. The word was just “Americanized”, as Americans used it to distinguish the sport from American football, which had become popular in the US a few decades before European football did. But the word was around previously. In fact, the word was originally — English. According to academic papers, the term soccer was coined at English universities in the late nineteenth century.

University students, you see had to make everything “cooler”, or at least easier on the tongue. At the time, it was popular to ad “er” onto the end of every sport, like they called rugby “rugger”. So, as football was known at the time as Association Football, they played with the word association. They came up with the word “assoccer”, shortened by time simply to “soccer”. So there you have it — the Americans caught wind of this English nickname for the sport and took it. Soccer, is English, not American, though distinctly branded as American. The word was Americanized.

Don’t expect this knowledge to turn off the American supporters, though. No, it should simply encourage them to use it, what with the irony. The chant “Soccer’s coming home” was quickly skipped over by the American Outlaws that night in November, but would not have been had they group known its ironic literal meaning.

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.