How the Great War made soccer the world’s most popular sport—and led to its first viral moment

One hundred years ago in mid-November, the guns went silent as an armistice ended four years of grueling, total warfare. It was a cruel conflict that devastated Europe, and in the wake of the destruction, modern society came into being. Looking back, the First World War was a watershed that unleashed a series of forces that continue to shape today’s world, including popular entertainment and the global soccer scene.

It is tempting to believe that more trivial activities like sports and games came to a halt during such a time, but soccer was a balm that brought people together, offering morsels of normalcy on the battlefield, creating new sources of civic pride on the home front, and unifying across cultures in prisoner-of-war camps. Crucially, the war years accelerated the game’s popularization, democratization, and globalization, and sowed the seeds for its future dominance.

“Soccer was everywhere,” says Arnaud Waquet, a professor at the University of Lille...