Association football, also known as just football or soccer, is an inter-collegiate team sport generally played between two parallel teams of eleven players each. It is the most popular sport in the world, playing regularly by about 250 million people in more than 200 countries and dependencies. The sport involves all aspects of the game: kicking, passing, tackling, heading, and running. The sport is divided into three phases, the offensive, defensive, and forward phases. The most obvious characteristic of the game is its wide range of physically demanding physical actions, which may include sprinting up to speed, jumping distances, throwing a ball or launching it with great force and accuracy into an area with goals at different ends.
International football competitions are frequently organised and hosted by the different countries and organizations of the World Cup tournaments. Competitions are awarded to teams based on their performance in different phases of the competition, which include the actual matches held in venues such as the finals, quarter-finals and semi-finals. The most prestigious international competitions are the World Cup tournaments, which are the most attended and watched sports events in the entire world. Also, there are other smaller competitions like the Intertoto Cup and the Interamerican Cup, which only invite teams from a given country or from a given region.
The sport of football may be played individually or as a part of a group. The latter is more common, with the association football league being the most well-known one in the United States. In either form, the teams are divided into sections with each section playing a specific type of football based on its position in the table. For instance, the first team plays in the field of soccer while the second team plays in the field of baseball. Then there are the reserve teams, which are made up of players who have been invited to play but who do not actually participate in any games.