Sports Illustrated recently did a feature on calcio fiorentino, a version of soccer first played in Florence in the 16th century and revived in 1930. Saying it is soccer is a bit of stretch as it is more like a team ultimate fighting match than a soccer game. It is a combination of soccer, rugby and australian rules football, with a bit of martial arts thrown in. A brief description of the game from the article is provided below:
The rest of the article can be accessed here.Two teams of muscular tattooed, bare-chested men are engaged in hand-to-hand combat over a ball, though with all the bodies flying, it's often impossible to say where it is. A thousand spectators sit in the bleachers set up around the square, yelling with rapacious glee. The melee is intermittently obscured by thick, red smoke, generated for the occasion by a machine, creating the illusion that all present - including old Dante - are peering into the fiery depths of hell.
Sounds like a blast to watch! Hopefully it's done with an old flair and doesn't have all the modern rules and regulations so that it is still a fun game!
Posted by: Peter de la Tour | March 08, 2009 at 06:59 PM