Comparison of association football and rugby union
Comparison of association football (football/soccer) and rugby union (rugby/rugby football/rugger) is possible because of the games' similarities and shared origins.
Rugby union has a number of set pieces, such as line-outs, scrums and rucks that do not have direct equivalents in association football.
Association football aims at a more open kind of play, and there is not the same differentiation between forwards and backs.
Another major difference is that rugby union, unlike association football, has no goal keeper.
[3] Other competitive games revolving around the kicking of a ball have been played in a few countries throughout history, such as cuju in China.
The term soccer originated in England, first appearing in the 1880s as an Oxford "-er" abbreviation of the word "association".
While an association football pitch makes use of arcs and circles, all of the lines in rugby union are straight.
Similar to the penalty arc, this indicates the minimum distance that opposing players must keep at kick-off; the ball itself is placed on the centre spot.
During penalty shootouts all players other than the two goalkeepers and the current kicker are required to remain within this circle.
[7] Stricter rules apply to the pitch size for matches between national representative teams.
Rugby league goal posts are generally H-shaped, 5.5 metres in width, with the cross bar three metres from the ground[12] Law 2 of the game specifies that the ball is an air-filled sphere with a circumference of 68–70 cm (27–28 in), a weight of 410–450 g (14–16 oz), inflated to a pressure of 0.6 to 1.1 atmospheres (60–111 kPa or 8.7–16.1 psi) "at sea level", and covered in leather or "other suitable material".
This configuration became common throughout Continental Europe in the 1960s, and was publicised worldwide by the Adidas Telstar, the official ball of the 1970 World Cup.
The familiar 32-panel football design is sometimes referenced to describe the truncated icosahedron Archimedean solid, carbon buckyballs or the root structure of geodesic domes.
Traditionally made of brown leather, modern footballs are manufactured in a variety of colours and patterns.
Most notably, a rugby union game will continue after the scheduled end of a half (half-time or full-time) until the ball becomes dead – any occurrence that would have play restart with a scrum or line-out, or when a team scores.
This has led to some 'nail-biting' finishes where teams losing by only a small margin work their way towards scoring, and games can go on several minutes over time.
Rugby union has been an international game since 1871, when Scotland beat England at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh.
The Rugby World Cup (RWC) itself is of much more recent origin, dating back to 1987, when invitations were sent out to various national sides.
The first official international football match took place in 1872 between Scotland and England in Glasgow, again at the instigation of C. W. Alcock.
The FIFA World Cup, often simply the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body.
