Not so very long ago
there was a little game
played for fun
between and within villages,
 neighbourhoods
and towns in England,
originally with a pig's bladder
that was kicked by opposing teams
attempting to get it through goalposts
at either end of a fairly-level field.
Sometimes these were marked by 
a pile of clothes or old fence-posts.

This is what it has become.

As with everything it gets involved with,

the USA not so much accepted
the unAmerican football World Cup
(and a minor sport in North America)

as imposed itself upon it.