28 Responses to Bubble Soccer: The Future of Sports?

  1. Papilio January 12, 2014 at 6:38 pm #

    Bike helmet 2.0?

  2. ank January 12, 2014 at 6:47 pm #

    ok that looks really fun. Silly but fun. Probably not (hopefully not) the future of soccer. But kind of combines those silly sumo wrestling costumes with soccer.

  3. Silver Fang January 12, 2014 at 6:50 pm #

    That confirms that today’s kids are “bubble wrapped.”

  4. eileen January 12, 2014 at 6:51 pm #

    It does look fun as a great sensory activity but kind of impractical for soccer as the bubbles seem to obscure vision as well as throw the kids off balance.

  5. SOA January 12, 2014 at 6:55 pm #

    I guess I am anti-free range on the sports issue. I won’t let my kids play sports as of right now. Which is good because they show no interest in them besides recreational goofing around. With all the constant injuries and concussions, I am just not a fan of it. Especially because there are parents and coaches out there that take it too seriously going so far as to try to “Take out” other players by injuring them from a super hard hit or whatever.

    I just don’t like it all around. Also the whole if you do sports it takes up all your free time and no time for actual free play. Our neighbor’s son does all star little league and they are NEVER home. It is all day every Saturday and weeknights.

  6. ifsogirl January 12, 2014 at 7:04 pm #

    Can I play too??? My daughters would love this as a fun silly thing to do. I might put kneepads on them though as they are still quite young.

  7. Emily January 12, 2014 at 7:13 pm #

    Actually… I’d say it looks dangerous! 😛 The reason people are falling all over during this is because their hands are up against their chest, changing the center of gravity, and I’d expect sprained ankles and such. It’s hilarious to watch, you’ve got to get really great soccer players to play it, and they’re falling all over, but I wouldn’t expect it to catch on. That’s why it’s a joke.

  8. Earth.W January 12, 2014 at 7:27 pm #

    Now that does look like lots of fun. Those parents fearing safety though will have their kids stuck in a dark room to stop sunburn as their mites sit in front of a computers using bubblewrapped fingers to play an online 3D sports game so they never get hurt.

  9. Kimberly Herbert January 12, 2014 at 7:50 pm #

    Looks like an excuse someone came up to be rougher and have some fun. Running with your arms in that position is hard – take it from someone who went through a good deal of PT to learn to swing her arms opposite her legs. Having your arms out of position really throws off your balance.

    The participants look like older teens/early 20s not young kids with helicopter parents.

  10. Bill K January 12, 2014 at 7:51 pm #

    Reminds me of a recent “This is That” episode, on ball-free soccer:

    http://www.cbc.ca/thisisthat/blog/2013/09/03/to-ensure-every-child-wins-ontario-athletic-association-removes-ball-from-soccer/

  11. Emily January 12, 2014 at 8:00 pm #

    Honestly, I don’t think that’s really a “safety” thing, for vision and balance reasons, as Eileen said. Also, the players could still kick each other in the shins (accidentally or otherwise), since they’re not wearing shin guards. So, it’s probably either a “just for fun” thing, or a training method to help soccer players become more graceful, with the handicap of the bubbles, or to remind them not to use their hands, because soccer is only kicking, except for the goalie. Besides, these aren’t even really soccer players–in the article, it says that it’s a cricket team playing bubble soccer. So, it was probably just a fun bonding activity for the cricket team, and nothing more.

  12. Melanie Jones January 12, 2014 at 8:46 pm #

    How funny you post this today! I was at the gym with my girl scouts tonight (they were roller skating…without release forms GASP!), and there was a group of guys upstairs doing this and I thought what in the world do I google to figure out what they are doing?! Then there you were with your answers!

  13. Stafir January 12, 2014 at 8:55 pm #

    Honestly if this was the future of soccer for school…I’d be all for it.

    Did you see the head on collisions, people bouncing upside down, against the ground, wobbling too and fro? They used the ‘safety bubbles’ as a good reason to rough house. So yeah I like it :).

  14. IKnowEverything January 12, 2014 at 9:08 pm #

    BORING! It very boring to watch. Probably fun to play, but it’s s-l-o-w and has no real movement other than being lucky enough to even see the ball at your feet, then kicking it. WHOOPEE. You can’t get near the opponent to get the ball from them, WOW how exciting. What’s the point of this again??

  15. J.T. Wenting January 12, 2014 at 9:09 pm #

    someone could hurt a leg, or something could fall in from the top and hurt a head.
    Clearly the bubbles aren’t working and the entire body needs to be encased in a 3 foot thick layer of bubble wrap instead.

    And of course there must even then be strict no-contact rules, and scoring must not be allowed as the weaker team should never be confronted with the fact that they’re not fantastic enough to prevent the other team from scoring.

  16. Kim Robson January 12, 2014 at 11:37 pm #

    Someone could still get a broken leg! Or torn ACL! Or a heart attack! Or a twisted ankle! Or the roof could cave in! A meteor could strike!

    Seriously, I’d love to hear a bunch of rugby players’ reactions to this.

  17. CrazyCatLady January 12, 2014 at 11:57 pm #

    Poor kids will still (hopefully) play without. I must say that I am not a fan of the head to ball that the soccer coach in our non-competitive, one time per week, soccer league thinks is important. I am currently trying to organize a pick up baseball game weekly this spring – I was told that we do need batting helmets, even though we are using tennis balls – just in case a kid throws a helmet. Hmm, where to get lice spray?

  18. Lin January 13, 2014 at 6:15 am #

    We had these at our last school fete. But just for kids to roll around in, which really didn’t look all that safe because you could easily hurt your legs, with the rest of your body immobilised. And quite a few kids got stuck standing on their heads and unable to roll themselves back the right way up. So great fun indeed!

    I loved the inflatable bubbles on the water my girl tried a couple of years ago at the carnival. Turns out they’re called bubble rollers: http://thebubblerollers.com/index.html

    Not all bubbles are bad!

  19. MRL January 13, 2014 at 7:48 am #

    Fun? Are they trying to suffocate the participants? Make them die of heat exhaustion?

    This looks about a billion times more dangerous than regular old soccer.

  20. MRL January 13, 2014 at 7:52 am #

    I also have to say that reading your comments section shocks me. For a “free range kids” blog, most commentators seem to have a decidedly “nervous nelly” outlook.

    Its soccer, for crying out loud. Why the comments are not universally “bubble soccer is a bad idea” is beyond me. Soccer has been played in various forms for thousands of years.

  21. Becky January 13, 2014 at 8:02 am #

    that looks like CRAZY amounts of fun! kids would be running into each other on purpose so they can fall over. yes, way fun. 🙂

  22. Melanie Jones January 13, 2014 at 8:18 am #

    Whatever they were doing at the gym clearly wasn’t soccer 2.0. Just some version of fun that was active. Not trying to be the future of sports, just some random sport activity that was clearly very funny. And that, I think, is a useful introduction to sports right? All league, super-competitive sports all the time is kind of bland after a while. Introduce something random that is a new challenge and hilarious – laughter is a good workout too!

  23. lollipoplover January 13, 2014 at 9:58 am #

    @Lin-
    One of the highlights of a trip to the beach was those hamster balls on water! The kids LOVED them. They were hard to do too, took lots of balance. And don’t attempt while wearing a dress, my daughter speaks from experience unless you want everyone seeing your smurfette underwear.

    I would totally play this sport. My kids love soccer and this looks extremely fun too. They have soccer played on bikes (using the tires to “kick”) and other hybrid sports.
    This reminds me more of the sumo wrestling inflatable suits than soccer. But I like it.

  24. EricS January 13, 2014 at 10:44 am #

    I don’t know about as a “future sport”, but it definitely does look fun.

    @Silver Fang: lol! Good one. But “bubble wrapped” kids, wouldn’t be playing, they’d be in that bubble sitting at home, if their parents had anything to say about it. lol

  25. Hels January 13, 2014 at 11:30 am #

    Hey, this does look like fun! AND totally prevents handling of the ball and penalties for that! Though on the other hand, I am against it in professional soccer. I was sad enough when they started giving out yellow cards to players who took off shifts when celebrating goals…

  26. Floyd Stearns January 13, 2014 at 2:50 pm #

    It looks like fun for indoors on a rainy day and good exercise, but it wouldn’t begin to replace “Real” soccer.

  27. Andy January 13, 2014 at 6:57 pm #

    @MRL Why would it be bad idea? It seems like fun thing to do. The bubbles are clearly there to make you bounce in head spinning ways and not for safety.

    I would definitely try the game if I could. Traditional soccer might be better as a sport, but so what. Things are sometimes done simply just so you have a change of activity and fun.

  28. Kirk Johnson January 14, 2014 at 4:22 pm #

    I believe this video is actually of a training exercise used by a cricket team.