But what is soccer? What does it mean to a person in Italy for example.....
The OED1 (B&M ed.) has soccer listed under its early British spelling socker. The word is not even considered an Americanism at the point. The first citation is 24/10/1891, in the periodical the Lock to Lock Times, 13/2: "A sterling player, and has the best interest of the 'socker' game at heart". The two other citations are from the late 19th century, both are spelled socker, and neither is from a US publication. The usual etymology given, though the OED1 does not offer one, is from association. It was suggested by Partridge and in another British slang dictionary I consulted that the word started in a public school (Harrows). It must have spread from the UK to other anglophone countries.
I looked in my roughly 40-year-old monolingual Italian dictionary, and foot-ball was listed as a synonym for calcio which means literally 'kick', though the word itself is from the Latin calx, calcis, 'heel' and also metonymically 'foot'. I know most of this thread has been good-natured ribbing but I really don't understand what the question means. What does 97% of English vocabulary "mean" to a (possibly monolingual) person in Italy?
