association football
- noun
- /əˌsoʊsiˈeɪʃən ˈfʊtbɔl/
:
fútbol
- The excitement in the stadium was palpable as fans cheered for their team in the association football match.
Examples
-
The World Baseball Classic is not necessarily mutually exclusive with baseball in the Olympics, just as the World Cup is not mutually exclusive with soccer/association football in the Olympics, just as the major tournaments in golf and tennis are not mutually exclusive with golf and tennis in the Olympics.
Blog text (18) -
Soccer (association football) officials are routinely subjected to a wide range of potential stressors.
Academic text (2007) -
In many countries, children start playing association football at a young age to develop their skills.
-
After school, the boys gathered at the park to play a game of association football with their friends.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
A team game where two teams try to get the ball into the other goal by kicking or carrying it
524
1.0
A team game where two teams of eleven try to score by kicking a ball into the other team's net
6
7.7
A casual name for the game of football, like soccer or Australian rules
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is compositionally built from 'association' (a formal body) + 'football' (the sport), so a learner who knows both words will infer it denotes a specific type/variant of football governed by an association. Because it is a literal, descriptive noun phrase rather than an idiom or metaphor, its meaning is predictable from the parts and thus accessible to B1 learners.
Etymology
Association football comes from the Football Association in England, the group that wrote the game's rules. They used the word association to show this kind of football, so the official name refers to the game people now call 'football' or 'soccer'.