Football Terminologies and Phrases Explained.

The home of football has given us not only the beautiful game itself but also a wealth of phrases and expressions that you must learn to appreciate the game. So today we take a look at 10 terminologies and Phrases in football.

10. DIVE

If you're a football fan and you don't know what diving is, you should relearn the whole football game. Diving is coined from swimming and this is quite self-explanatory. Dives are frequently employed to amplify the level of contact experienced during a challenge. 

Other names for diving include simulation (the term FIFA uses), Schwalbe (German for "swallow"), and flopping (North American sports in general).

Oumar Niasse, an ex-Everton player, was the first player to receive a diving suspension from the Football Association in November 2017. While competing against Crystal Palace, he earned a two-match suspension for the offence.

9. CLEAN SHEET

There are two origin stories as to how the term "clean sheet" was coined. We have the bedsheet theory and the paper theory.

The bed sheet theory is not a popular one but as it goes back before nets we used in goal posts, bed sheets were used back then and after a match has been played on the muddy pitch of the 1900s if the bed sheet remains white after the match it was said the keeper has kept a clean sheet.

In the Paper theory which is the most popular one of the two, it is said the phrase "clean sheet" comes from a time when soccer match results were kept on a piece of paper by "scorers." The term originated because at the time if the scorekeeper didn't have to write anything on his piece of paper, the paper would stay clean.

8. NUTMEG

There are two versions of the origin of Nutmeg in football. 

According to Jimmy Hill, the term "nutmeg" was first used in the 1940s to refer to the ability to pass the ball between an opponent's legs and then retrieve it from the other side. Or the assertion that nuts, a term for nutmeg that is frequently used in the northern part of England, "refers to the testicles of the player through whose legs the ball has been passed and nutmeg is just a development from this," made in Alex Leith's book Over the Moon, Brian: The Language of Football

The second version and my personal favourite. The phrase came into being as a result of a crude method utilized in the nutmeg trade between America and England. Because nutmegs were such a desirable item, unethical exporters were frequently seen inserting wooden copies into the sacks being sent to England, in another word, you've been nutmegged. Being nutmegged quickly came to signify both the fooled victim's naivety and the trickster's cunning.

7. BOSMAN RULE

The Bosman decision allowed players to switch clubs at the end of their contracts without paying their previous team a fee.

In 1995, the Bosman Rule was established in honor of footballer Jean-Marc Bosman. Although his contract with RFC Liege was about to expire, Bosman filed a lawsuit against the club for preventing him from moving freely to Dunkerque in France without paying a transfer fee. When this decision, football players have been permitted to freely join a different club after their contracts expire.

It is this rule that made it possible for Messi to move to PSG etc.

6. BRACE

The word "brace" has Old English roots and refers to a "pair" of a killed or shot-down object. In Anglo-French, it implies "a pair of arms" whereas in shooting, "a brace of pheasants" refers to two of them. 

Therefore, the term, which appears to have first appeared in use in the 19th century, essentially refers to the act of hunting through skill. For this reason, scoring a brace is equivalent to 'hunting' down two goals in a game.

5. HAT TRICK

What's better than scoring a brace? Scoring a hat trick. Everybody loves scoring hat tricks. Originating from cricket, the term refers to taking three wickets in three balls. A hat trick allegedly qualified the bowler for a club commemorative hat or it might have allowed him to pass the hat for a monetary collection.

In 1858, a baseball player struck out three batters in a row at a game played in Sheffield, England. The phrase "hat-trick" was coined not long after that date by a pitcher by the name of Heathfield Harman (HH) Stephenson. H.H. Stephenson is unlikely to have any awareness that they are coining a phrase which, over the next 150+ years, would come to be linked with sport, particularly soccer.

4. KOP

What are the typical candidates when one considers the most renowned football stadiums in the world? The Stretford End at Old Trafford, the Yellow Wall in Dortmund, and the North Stand for Boca Juniors are also popular options. But what about Liverpool's Anfield's Kop? That name for a stand, especially one in England, seems so odd.

The name comes from a battlefield in South Africa where hundreds of local soldiers died during the Boer War. Many of these soldiers were from Liverpool and Lancashire. Ernest Edwards, a local sports editor, said that Liverpool FC's new cinder and brick stand, which was constructed in 1906, resembled the battlefield where many local men had fallen. When the club increased its capacity to 27,000 and built a cantilever roof the name was given official recognition.

3. DERBY

It is generally accepted that the word "derby" comes from the English town of Ashbourne in the county of Derbyshire. The Royal Shrovetide Football Match, also known as "hugball," has been played between the "uppers" and the "downers," or teams from opposite sides of the river that passes through the town, since the 12th century

Other explanations for the term's origin exist, one of which holds that it derived from "The Derby," a horse race that was started in England in 1780 by the 12th Earl of Derby.  Another is that the game between the Reds and Everton is where the phrase "derby match" originated. One of the first instances of the term "local derby" in print media appeared in the Daily Express's description of a game between the Reds and the Toffees in October 1914. 

2. VOLLEY

The fact that it has been ten years since Peter Crouch's "greatest ever" goal gave Stoke City a 1-0 victory over Manchester City at the Bet365 Stadium is incredible. Or when Robin Van Persie pounced onto Wayne Rooney's flighted pass for the second goal, which was a miraculous effort by Van Persie. The fact is that we all love a good volley when it's scored but where is the word Volley coined from?

Volley has a military meaning that dates back to the 1500s while the sporting meaning didn't appear until the late 1800s. The Latin root word for "fly" is Volare.

Tennis is the first sport to use the term volley to mean a returned tennis ball that has typically not yet touched the ground before being struck by a racket. Then football borrowed it to give meaning to a similar ball movement and since then volley has meant an air-borne strike in football, where a player's foot meets and directs the ball in an angled direction before it has time to reach the ground.

1. SOCCER

The beautiful game, also known as football or "futbol" in much of the rest of the world, is almost solely known as soccer in the United States of America. Why?

Delegates from several English clubs and schools met to create a set of football rules. The word association technique was utilized to separate their sport from other games of the day, such as "rugby football". They gave their new group the name Football Association, and their particular brand of football earned the moniker "Association Football."  The British players of the era used the acronym "assoc," "assoccer," and eventually "soccer" or "soccer football" to form the word soccer, which is derived from the word association.  

Until well into the 20th century, association football was referred to by the parallel terms soccer and football (or the combined soccer football). At that point, football began to take over as the preferred term in most of the world. The word soccer persisted in nations like America and Australia where a different football variant was already widely popular.