The beautiful game

[3][4] The English author and football fanatic H. E. Bates used the term earlier, including in a 1952 newspaper piece extolling the virtues of the game entitled "Brains in the Feet".

[5] Earlier writers used the term in 1848 to describe the game of baaga'adowe, a forerunner of lacrosse as played by Ojibwe at Vauxhall Gardens in London,[6] and to tennis in 1890.

Featuring football anthems such as "Three Lions", music writer John Harris states that the album captures how the build-up to UEFA Euro 1996 "caught the imagination of the UK's musicians.

In 1996, a Nike commercial titled "Good vs Evil" was a gladiatorial game set in a Roman amphitheatre where ten football players from around the world, including Eric Cantona, Ronaldo, Paolo Maldini, Luís Figo, Patrick Kluivert, Ian Wright, and Jorge Campos, defend "the beautiful game" against a team of demonic warriors, which culminates in Cantona receiving the ball from Ronaldo, pulling up his shirt collar, and delivering the final line, "Au revoir", before striking the ball and destroying evil.

[17][18] Nike began using the slogan joga bonito in a campaign preceding the 2006 FIFA World Cup in an attempt to curb players' behaviours on the pitch.