No, that wasn’t actually football despite what it may look like at first sight! First impressions can many times be misleading, you know.

That game, depicted on an Attic lekythos, was called ‘Episkyros’ or ‘Phaininda’ (among other names), or they may have been two different versions of the same game.

More precisely, it involved two teams of a dozen to fourteen players apiece that could use both hands and feet to tackle the ball, with full physical contact allowed.

Actually, it more of resembled rugby rather than football and there weren’t goals scored but the aim was to force the opposition, through combinations with the ball, to drop behind their ‘goal line.’

Moreover, the ball itself was smaller in size that a modern football, rather brightly painted, and was made out of pieces of leather that were sewn together containing animal entrails.

‘Episkyros’ seemed to be particularly linked to and was very popular in Sparta, where it could also be quite violent, where the ‘Phaininda’ looks like a version rather played in other regions.

The appellation ‘Episkyros’ apparently breaks down as ‘epi-skyros’ spelling ‘on the (halfway) line’ since there was a halfway line that, as the name suggests, was made out of small fragments/debris of some material (skyros).

On the other hand, the version of ‘Phaininda’ (or very likely ‘Phaeninda’ too) is attributed to the Phainides (or likely Phaenides) but who the latter were is not clear. The first component, yet, of ‘phain/phaen-‘ suggests a likely Phrygian or even a Thrasian origin.

Whether the latter was played only by Hellenes or not is not established or clear as the applied name ‘Greek,’ which didn’t exist at the time, is many times arbitrarily used by modern historians.

The earliest known form of a team game played entirely with the feet was the Chinese ‘Cuju’ where the aim was to direct the ball through an opening in a raised net, first mentioned in the third century BC.