"The students are playing soccer."

Translation: Les élèves jouent au football.

[AndySpalding63]

Its not soccer in 99% of the world, it's football

[ikwilvertalen]

Duolingo is an American company, that primarily uses and teaches American English, so in general, AE is what is used in the main answers, (hence why "soccer" is shown here), but other variants of English are accepted as alternative answers, so "football" should also be accepted.