While it is widely believed that the origins of soccer lie in the British Isles,1 new research by xenobiologist Tot Tibor reveals that this is almost certainly not the case. Ancient records indicate that the game was introduced into North America by extraterrestrials, with the first match reportedly played on the current site of the United States Capitol building, some 3.76 million years ago.
In fact, evolutionary biologists believe that soccer played a key role in the evolution of human intelligence. Before the introduction of soccer, our hands gave us a sufficient evolutionary advantage. After soccer was introduced, hands were more of a disadvantage than an advantage; larger and more sophisticated brains were required in order to succeed.2
Now, the caviller might object that, despite its manly origins, soccer today has been emasculated by rules such as the ban on concealed weapons, the complete prohibition of anti-personnel mines, and restrictions on the offensive use of vomit. But by that argument, boxing would be equally, or perhaps even more, effete. Not only is the sport of Greek, rather than American, origin, it has fallen far short of its ancient goriness. Boxing gloves no longer have spikes as they did in ancient days, and victors are no longer permitted to strike their opponents until they die.
And when it comes to baseball—well, we’ll have to save that for another day.
“Tepantitla mural, Ballplayer A (Daquella manera)” by Daniel Lobo (Daquella manera) – Flickr. CC-BY-2.0 via Wikimedia Commons. Altered, head replaces ball in original image.
“Boxer of quirinal hands”. CC-BY-2.5 via Wikimedia Commons
- See, for example this document: http://wayback.archive.org/web/20070701210540/http://www.fifa.com/classicfootball/history/game/historygame2.html. ↩
- Some theorists believe that, if soccer had not been replaced by golf in prehistoric North America, a race of highly intelligent, but armless, soccer players might have arisen. The tentative name for the hypothetical species is Homo ludipedatus. ↩
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