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Comment by thebruce87m | Hacker News Reader

American football or European football? This is like the gallon thing all over again.

Note: I will use the term "soccer" for the most common football of Europe, "Association football", and "football" for American football. And before anyone says that soccer fields should be called "pitches" not "fields" I will note that FIFA's "Laws of the Game" call it "field" 184 times. They only mention "pitch" in the glossary where the heading for "field" is "Field of play (pitch)".

Generally you want to use American football fields for this because American football fields have a standard size, 100 yards x 160 feet (91.44 x 53.3 meters). That size field is used in professional, college, and high school football.

Soccer fields on the other hand not only vary from country to country, they aren't even always all the same size within a league. The English Premier League for example is trying to standardize on 105 x 68 meters but several clubs are not yet there: Brentford (105 x 65), Chelsea (103 x 67), Crystal Palace (100 x 67), Everton (103 x 70), Fullham (100 x 65), Liverpool (101 x 68), and Nottingham Forest (105 x 70).

For international play the standard is a range. 100-110 meters length and 64-70 meters width.

There are parts of soccer fields that are standardized to specific values rather than ranges so would be good for unambiguous length or area comparisons. The amusing thing is that those all have fractional values in metric but integer values in Imperial/US units:

• Radius of circle around center mark: 10 yards.

• Penalty area: 44 x 18 yards.

• Distance from penalty mark to goal: 12 yards.

• Goal area: 20 x 6 yards.

• Distance between goal posts: 8 yards.

• Height of crossbar: 8 feet.

> I will use the term "soccer" for the most common football of Europe, "Association football", and "football" for American football.

I appreciate your valiant efforts but to my mind this is extra confusing because "soccer" is short for "association football"

Time to rename American Football to "handegg" once and for all. Ok, ok, I'll settle for "American Rugby"

Or just go back to calling it gridiron football.

Or just American Handball

I've heard "handegg" before but a football is not shaped like an egg, it's vaguely egg-like but the teardrop shape of an egg is distinctly not what a football looks like.

It looks more like an egg than it looks like a ball, so if we have to force fit into a common word, my vote goes for egg

But it acts more like a ball than like an egg.

European soccer, or American soccer? (there are significant differences)

I mean, you want a classically beautiful field right. So use the Golden Ratio.

Of the English Premier League fields Brentford is pretty close: 105/1.618 = 64.89; close enough to their 105x65m field.

Honestly I'd settle on a 100m length though. Thus a 100x61.8 field.

standard football field size, or empirical average?

I suspect the average football field size across the former British Empire is close to the FIFA standard.

Throw in Australian Rules Football fields if you're looking for a maximum, particularly if orginal marn-grook is in the mix.

> suspect the average football field size across the former British Empire is close to the FIFA standard.

The FIFA standard (https://downloads.theifab.com/downloads/laws-of-the-game-202...) leaves a lot of leeway:

“3. Dimensions

The touchline must be longer than the goal line.

• Length (touchline): minimum 90 m (100 yds), maximum 120m (130 yds)

• Length (goal line): minimum 45 m (50 yds), maximum 90m (100 yds)”

So, a field can be almost square at 90m × 89m or approaching thrice as long as wide, at 120m × 45m.

Reason for this is prior art that can be hard to change (if there’s a stadium around your field, and it’s deemed too small, you’d have to demolish it to make the field fit the standard)

Various competitions restrict this, though.

Interesting .. I hadn't realised there'd be so much give in the FIFA specs!

Thankyou for looking that up.

Laden or unladen?

Or Canadian or Aussie rules football?

Gaelic, obviously

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