Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of eleven players, and is widely considered to be the most popular sport in the world.
Games revolving around the kicking of a ball have been played in many countries throughout history. According to FIFA, the "very earliest form of the game for which there is scientific evidence was an exercise of precisely this skilful technique dating back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC in China (the game of cuju)."
Various forms of football were played in medieval Europe, though rules varied greatly by both period and location.
The modern rules of football are based on the mid-19th century efforts to standardise the widely varying forms of football played at the public schools of England.
The modern game was codified in England following the formation of The Football Association, whose 1863 Laws of the Game created the foundations for the way the sport is played today.
