Introduction
A Football Bowl Game refers to a Cup or Championship specific to the country that hosts it, in which several teams play against each others in order to win the title. The main difference between two of these competitions is that the matches in Cup have an eliminatory aspect. Some of the best Football Bowl games are located in England (Barclays), Spain (Liga BBVA and Liga Adelante), Italy (Serie A and the Italian Supercup) or Germany (Bundesliga). But Football is a world-wide sport, so we have also MLS (Major League Soccer - USA), Primera Division Mexican, Sonata K League (Korea). Also, every country has its own “National Team” with the best players from the top teams.
Short History
The Ancient Greeks and Romans are known to have played many ball games, some of which involved the use of feet. Other documents describe an activity resembling football dating from the 1st and 3rd centuries BC in China and Japan as well. But one of the first references to a game that involves several players passing a ball forward in attempt to score past a goalkeeper is located in Aberdeen, Scotland and dates from 1633. Football Bowl Games were developed in England in the 19th century by establishing rules of play (e.g. The Sheffield Rules, The Cambridge Rules). After years and years of refining the game, a need of international adopted rules appeared and took form in 1904 in Paris, France as FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association). Football Bowl Games as we know it is played in ordinance to the FIFA rules in several countries world-wide.
Schedule
This game is usually played on an open field of grass, well delimited and split into two halves. Because of its outdoor nature, the people first tend to play it on sunny weather, during the summer. So as you may think of it already, the football season covers most part of the summer. But that is not quite accurate. For example a season in a country that encounters a snowy winter may have a season that starts in late summer, takes a short break from November to March (depending on the weather) and finishes from spring to the start of the summer.
Structure
Every game has to have a structure! No matter if it’s a Cup, Supercup or Championship, it is guided after a specific hierarchy. In every Football Bowl several teams compete, every team has players (up to 18 players, of which 11 can be on the field at one time. Only three substitutes may be used per game). In a normal Championship every team will match every other rival team two times (once on their “home” field and once on the rival’s “home” field) and there will be a scoring list (usually for a win the award is 3 points, draw – 1 pt and loss – 0 pts). At the end of the Championship the team with the most points will win and be “crowned” as champion. The Cup is a bit different because there are qualifications (mini championships where only the first two teams get to advance), quarter–finals (8), semifinals (4) and finals (2). The last three types of matches have an eliminatory character.
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