Anna Lech Keep Your Eye on the Ball!

What is the most popular sport in the world? It’s football, of course, with a stunningstunningstunning number of 4 billion fans all over the globe! Surprisingly, football, which is called soccer in the United States, isn’t the most popular game in this country. Americans play… American football. These two games are very different. So let’s get the ball rollingget the ball rolling get the ball rolling and find out about this well‑known American spectatorspectatorspectator sport.

American football is a team gameteam gameteam game that is pretty fast and very aggressive. There are eleven players from each team on the fieldfieldfield but there may be 45 to 50 players ready to play in different specialised positions. Each team has offensiveoffensive (adjective)offensive players, who play when their team has possessionpossessionpossession of the ball, and defensivedefensivedefensive players, who play when the other team has the ball. The game involves a lot of body contact and the players wear protective equipmentprotective equipmentprotective equipment to help keep the body safe. Footballers always wear special helmetshelmets [helmet]helmets and face masks to protect the head and face area. Their shoulders, hips and legs are guarded by strong padspads [pad]pads.

The teams score pointsscore pointsscore points by crossing the opponent’opponentopponent’s goal linegoal linegoal line with the ball – this is called ‘a touchdowntouchdowntouchdown’, or by kicking the ball between the goalpostsgoalposts [goalpost]goalposts.

The most famous American football game is called the Super Bowl and is always held on a Sunday in February. It is televisedtelevisedtelevised around the world and always gets a huge audienceaudience audience. Millions of people watch the game on TV each year.

The ball itself is brown and made of leather. It has a characteristic oval shape and white rings near each end. Thanks to these rings the players can see the ball well when it is passedpassed [pass]passed or when someone is running with it. There are also eight stitchesstitches [stitch] (noun)stitches on the top of the football. These help players to gripgripgrip or hold it when throwing or passing.

While American football may be fast and dangerous, the game of cricket is quite the opposite.  This sport is a so‑called bat‑and‑ball gamebat‑and‑ball gamed bat‑and‑ball game and is often considered extremely slow and boring as one match can be several hours or even days long. Cricket fans though don’t mind the slower pacepacepace of the game. This sport is exceptionally popular in the UK, Australia, India and Pakistan. The best known tournament is called “The AshesashesAshes”. It is a series of games played between England and Australia. The name of the tournamenttournamenttournament originated in a satiricalsatiricalsatirical obituaryobituaryobituary published in a British newspaper in 1882 when Australia won their first match on the English ground. The obituary stated that English cricket had died, and “the body will be crematedcrematedcremated and the ashes taken to Australia.”

Similarly to American football, each cricket team has eleven players who have different roles to play on an oval, grassy field called a ground. The players have to hit the ball with a wooden cricket batbatbat. The round cricket ball is small and made of leather. At times the game may resembleresembleresemble baseball as the cricketers hit the ball and run to score a point, but cricket is more complicated. The players must run between special wooden poles called wicketswickets [wicket]wickets. There are many complex rules and some people say cricket is impossible to understand.

Cricket may not be very well known but it has been played for over 600 years! A form of this sport known as creag was already played in the 14Indeks górny th^th century England. It became a sport in the 17Indeks górny th^th century and the first professional players appeared as early as in 1660.

1 Źródło: Anna Lech, [na podstawie:] https://www.kidzworld.com/article/25277-super-bowl-fun-facts-and-trivia/ [dostęp 4.01.2022], https://www.history.com/topics/sports/super-bowl-history [dostęp 4.01.2022], https://bestlifeonline.com/super-bowl-facts/#:~:text=Patriots%20quarterback%20Tom%20Brady%20is,than%20any%20other%20NFL%20player. [dostęp 4.01.2022], https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Ashes [dostęp 4.01.2022], licencja: CC BY-SA 3.0.