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When football gets dirty - 16th October 2023
Football is popular everywhere. But in Finland, people play a different game. It's in a swamp – there's lots of water.
Jussi Kiiskila's the boss of the Swamp Soccer World Cup.
Jussi Kiiskila: "Swamp soccer was invented back in 1998. Basically, most of the top Finnish cross-country skiers used to train in the summer in the swamp area because it's very good exercise for the, for the fitness. And here in Hyrynsalmi a skier came up with the crazy idea of combining football and skiing, and you know the first competition was held in 1998, near Hyrynsalmi, with 13 teams."
Swamp soccer isn't easy to play. The game is short. Each half of the match is only 10 minutes. Only six men or women play on each team. That includes the goalkeepers. But the rules of the game are the same.
Siri plays for a Finnish team, Lahen Stolit.
Siri: "Well, we just play kind of soccer in the swamp. Obviously, we get stuck on the swamp and we lose our shoes in the swamp and so on. But we just try to get the ball into the goal. That's the main purpose."
This year, a German team, Jugendclub Lindenau, entered the competition – the World Championships. They won the gold in one group. It was good to play on different football pitches.
Member of German team Jugendclub Lindenau: "The fields are really different to soccer. Every field, like here, is different. Some, like, really dry and some are really the swamp, and you sink in, like, the whole body and you need to crawl."
Football fans don't need to stand in the mud. They can watch from the side.
This year, 140 teams came to play in the Finnish competition. Both men and women played.
Numbers fell during Covid-19. Before then, there were 200-250 teams. There are now 300 swamp football teams around the world.
Would you like to try it?
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