This article misrepresents the true history of football. The old fairy tale of a player running with a soccer ball and thereby inventing rugby is a myth. Both tackling and non tackling versions of “football” were played well back into antiquity. The rules of what we call soccer weren’t even codified until well after the American Revolution.
Soccer is popular because it was injected through colonialism. The fact that it only requires a ball, field, and willing players seems to add. It’s arguably the least specialized sport on the planet.