re: When soccer was first conceived, invented, codified, whatever...

I think what the OP is not grasping is that defending in soccer does not have a set ending. In football, if you tackle and stop the ball carrier three times in a row, your defense trots off the field.

Now, let's ignore for a moment the athletic skills necessary in defending in soccer, which admittedly share some similarities with other sports. If all you could possibly do was stop the attacking player, but were unable to do anything meaningful with the ball, you would never stop defending the whole game. And there is no way that any defense could withstand that much in attack. Right, OP?