Soccer (known as football almost everywhere outside North America) is the most-played and most-watched sport on the planet, with roots that stretch back thousands of years before the modern rulebook was ever written.
From record-breaking scorelines to the surprisingly strict specifications of the ball itself, here are the facts behind the world's game, checked against the record.
Soccer is the world's most popular sport, with an estimated 3.5 to 4 billion fans across every inhabited continent.
Ball games resembling soccer were played by ancient civilizations, including the Chinese game of cuju, the Greeks, and the Romans, but the modern sport with codified rules was created in England, when the Football Association formed in 1863.
The first official international soccer match was played on November 30, 1872, between Scotland and England in Glasgow. The game ended in a 0-0 draw.
The FIFA World Cup is the most-watched single sporting event in the world. The 2022 final between Argentina and France drew a global audience of roughly 1.5 billion viewers, the largest single-match audience ever measured.
Claims of a 1.8-second world-record goal by Nawaf Al-Abed are disputed: the match was later voided over ineligible players, and there is no universally agreed system for timing the very fastest goals.
At the 2002 FIFA World Cup, Turkey's Hakan Şükür scored a goal just 11 seconds into the third-place match against South Korea, the fastest goal in men's World Cup history.
The fastest verified goal in a top professional league belongs to Shane Long, who scored for Southampton against Watford in 7.69 seconds in 2019.
The highest-scoring soccer match on record ended 149-0. On October 31, 2002, AS Adema beat SO l'Emyrne in Madagascar after l'Emyrne's players deliberately scored own goals to protest a controversial refereeing decision earlier in the tournament.
A regulation soccer ball must weigh between 14 and 16 ounces (410-450 grams) and have a circumference of 27 to 28 inches (68-70 cm), per the official Laws of the Game.
The Guinness World Record for the longest marathon football match is 168 hours (7 days), set by two amateur teams in Winterbach, Germany, in 2019.
The first player sent off with a red card in English league football was Blackburn Rovers' David Wagstaffe, dismissed against Orient on October 2, 1976, the same day red and yellow cards debuted in the English game.
Red and yellow cards were invented by English referee Ken Aston, reportedly inspired by a traffic light, and were first trialed at the 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico.
Neymar's 2017 transfer from FC Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain, worth about 222 million euros (roughly $263 million), remains the most expensive transfer in soccer history.
Soccer's oldest surviving club is Sheffield F.C., founded in England in 1857, predating the Football Association itself.
Real Madrid has won the UEFA Champions League a record 15 times, most recently in 2024.
We write every article to be genuinely fun — and genuinely true. Each fact is checked against reputable sources before it goes live. Spotted something off? Tell us and read our fact-check policy.
Sports FactsSurprising, verified sports facts covering tennis, the Olympics, basketball, golf, and more trivia every fan should know.
Sports FactsFrom bare-handed origins in France to a 163.7 mph serve, discover surprising, fact-checked facts about tennis history, rules, and records.
Sports FactsDiscover snow kayaking, the extreme winter sport that sends kayaks racing down snowy slopes instead of rivers. Origins, gear, races, and safety facts.
Sports FactsFun, verified facts about hockey — from the Stanley Cup's odd history to Gretzky's records and the fastest slapshots ever recorded.