How Playing Football Develops Useful SkillsFootball is the most popular sport in the world with its grand stage, the World Cup every four years. Many

Football is the most popular sport in the world with its grand stage, the World Cup every four years. Many of the world’s players can become huge celebrities if they perform well during the World Cup. Fans will travel across the globe just to make sure that they see their favorite team play. This type of excitement can not be duplicated by any other sport anywhere in the world. Football does a wonderful job building many different skills in young children. These skills can help them progress in football, other sports, and in life in general.

Some of the physical skills that football will help children develop are speed, quickness, balance, endurance, and strength. Football players must have these skills to be able to play the game even at a young age. Players that develop these useful skills when they are young, have a great chance to blossom into a star later in life. Also many of these children will take these skills and use them in other sports as well. The skills learned in football can translate well into almost any sport. American football players, basketball players, baseball players, and even hockey players can benefit from playing football at an early age. One of my favorite basketball players of all time, Hakeem Olajuwon, grew up playing football in Africa. He attributed his great balance and coordination to the many years playing football. I believe that every child should grow up playing football, because I think that it can help them later on in life.

Football can also teach children many life lessons that they can look back on as they grow older. Children learn how to work well with others, because they have to communicate with their teammates if they want to have a chance of winning. Football also teaches children how to be humble winners and gracious losers, because they have to work through all of the emotions that come along with playing sports. It also teaches children the value of determination and hard work, because only the most determined and hard working teams will succeed. All of these skills that children learn at a young age will help to mold them into the leaders of the future.

World Cup and the fate of soccer

In 1994, the US hosted the World Cup, an honor we didn't deserve, but handled surprisingly well. While the venues were spread out a bit too far, each town put its imprint on the games. Having Ireland play in Foxboro was a great choice. (Having to sit on a plane full of drunk supporters after the game on my flight back to DC was... hmmmm... very frightening, however.)
The big story in 1994 (outside of the fantastic WC final, the Columbian own goal, and the US advancement) was how Americans hadn't embraced soccer, and probably never would. While it seemed to be a somewhat fair story to run at the time, I was aghast to see the same articles get rehashed in 2002.
Did sports journalists get lazy? Did they research this? In 1994, the term "soccer mom" was gaining cred as a phrase -- you could begin to run for office on that platform (in the Year of the Woman, which is another rehashed story on the pol side). In 2002, every mom it seems is shuttling off to soccer practice in the same manner that our moms shuttled us off to football, baseball and to some extent soccer.