The Beautiful Game

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The Phrase "The Beautiful Game" was first coined by Didi, a player for the brazilian soccer team(also one of football's superstars). In 1977 Pelé, one of football's greatest superstars, named his autobiography My Life and the Beautiful Game. The book's dedication read "I dedicate this book to all the people who have made this great game the Beautiful Game". The phrase has now entered the language as a colourful description for association football and as such was used as part of the title for the 13-part series charting the history of the game: History of Football: The Beautiful Game. Prior to the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Nike launched a marketing campaign dubbed "Joga Bonito" which set out to explore the Brazilian idea of the beautiful game. Joga bonito means "play beautifully" and is itself a phrase used widely in Brazilian Portuguese.

The term echoes J.C. Thring's description of the rules he helped develop for football in the middle of the 19th century, as The Simplest Game, which lead to the development of the rules of association football.