11 Elevenarium PL

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Sport 1863

Football's eleven, and the Polish word jedenastka

A penalty at the 1978 World Cup: the Argentine goalkeeper dives and stops the ball, the Polish players watch from the edge of the box
A jedenastka at the 1978 World Cup: Ubaldo Fillol of Argentina saves Kazimierz Deyna’s penalty, 14 June 1978. Photo: El Gráfico, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Football Association, which wrote the first rules of the modern game, was founded in a London pub in October 1863 by representatives of eleven clubs and schools. Those first rules did not say how many should play; eleven a side became the custom and was written into the Laws in 1897. The penalty kick arrived in 1891, taken from twelve yards: 10.97 metres, which German, Hungarian, Russian and Polish, among others, simply call eleven.

Polish has a single word for the team and the kick. Jedenastka is the number eleven, a team of eleven, and a penalty kick. When a commentator shouts “jedenastka!”, everyone knows which of the three he means.

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