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Intermediate Reading Lesson #2 - Soccer

1. Read the text.
2. Answer the questions.
3. Check your answers.

Text

The game of soccer — more commonly referred to outside the United States as football — has long been one of the most popular sports in the world.

With origins that date back many centuries, soccer is played by young children, college students and professionals. Amateur clubs and weekend warriors add to the passion that swells up every four years for the most-watched sporting event in the world, the World Cup.

History

Although soccer’s international governing body, the International Federation of Association Football, recognizes the birth of the modern game as 1863 in England, the deepest origins go back centuries.

The Han Dynasty in the second century B.C. saw the emergence of a game similar to soccer called tsu’ chu. Several centuries after that, the Japanese game Kemari began. Kemari was less competitive, with participants passing the ball from one another using their feet, trying to keep it from touching the ground. Much later, a violent town game emerged called mob football in Europe during the Middle Ages.

Premise and rules

The game of soccer is built around the pursuit of scoring goals. Teams move the the ball up and down the field in an attempt to kick it within the goal, a framework that measures 8 feet in height and 24 feet in width at the professional level.

The player guarding the goal, the goalkeeper, is the only player on a team typically allowed to touch the ball with his hands. Except during a throw-in, the other players must use their feet, knees, head and chest to control and advance the ball.

A regulation game is played in two 45-minute halves.

Source: sportsrec.com

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