Planned in Lyon during the Women's World Cup: "We will play a regular game of 11-a side football on a full size pitch. However, the game only ends when teams run out of substitutes. To be counted, every player needs to play at least 10 minutes and touch the ball at least once. The game runs non-stop – including through the night. If 3500 players join us in France [2019], we estimate the game will last about 5-6 days." - (festivaloffootball.org) It's crazy, it can't work! Or can it? The current world record is 2,357 players in a 4-day game in Santiago de Chile in 2016. And the festival organizers, Equal Playing Field, have broken a couple of records before. Some well-known women's footballers trekked to Kilimanjaro to play the world's highest-altitude match... ...and then the lowest-altitude match, at the Dead Sea in Jordan. The Pakistan captain Hajra Khan "scored the winning goal despite having a broken toe from parading around the Seven Pillars of Wisdom". The long game in Lyon is part of several events at the Festival of Football, which runs during the World Cup quarter-finals, from 27 June - 1 July 2019. Will it work? Can it be done...? More info is on https://footballnsw.com.au/2019/01/21/festival-of-football-to-headline-in-france/ and on https://www.festivaloffootball.org/about (Archived)
I arrive in Lyon on July 1, currently planned as the last day of the "game." Maybe I can find an old folks team that's participating.
Hmm... 2-1 to the... blue team (Is there a blue team?) @Bauser, sorry for quoting your "mountain to climb" (Barça v LSK) out of context. I was trying to show that my "KILIMANJARO" comment wasn't totally mad. They really played football there.
If the game's still going, you can see it at Olympique Lyon's youth academy: Did you know @OL was the first academy in France to welcome boys and girls. @olfeminin also just won their 13th Ligue 1 title in a row and will be competiting in the @UEFA Women's Champions League final this Saturday! pic.twitter.com/bqVsdZyQYs— Equal Playing Field (@EPFinitiative) May 17, 2019 The thing that might reduce the numbers is the player registration fee, €45 - it's pretty steep. It looks like any player gets a bunch of good stuff for the money, and AFAIK the Equal Playing Field is a non-profit charity and an honourable cause (originally founded in Papua New Guinea to prevent violence against women). But, over 3,000 players, on the field day and night...? So many things need to go right.
They beat some kind of record, anyway, 5-a-side... In the end, it was 807 players playing for 68 hours, three days, to beat the 5x5 football record. And in some of the hottest weather in years. But they didn't play the full-size game that they'd really wanted, for which the Chilean record is still standing. - http://beyond90.com.au/community-football/world-records-broken-by-equal-playing-field/ (Archived) Final score: Red Team 400 - 369 Blue Team We're still wrapping our heads around the last few weeks & the amazing human beings who joined us during the #FestivalofFootball. Many dove head 1st into volunteering in #Lyon, championing our shared mission: Opportunity. Equality. Respect. Nothing more. Nothing less.— Equal Playing Field (@EPFinitiative) July 20, 2019 Also at the match was Optus Sport Australia, with ex-players Alicia Ferguson and Moya Dodd, and the broadcaster Niav Owens Other videos - by Equal Playing Field, and Euronews in French