Soccer is the most popular sport in the world, with avid followers ranging far and wide, in places such as the mountains of Chile to the bitter cold plains of Russia. But on the swampy islands of Indonesia, a new version of the “Beautiful Game” has developed.
The rules remain the same, except one: The ball is one fire.
Soccer, commonly known as football, is an 11-on-11 game played by using all parts of your body, excluding your arms and hands, to kick, head, pass, and shoot the ball into the opponents net.
However, the Indonesian sport “Sepack Bola Api” or “The Fireball Game” is a whole other beast. The game is played with all the normal rules of soccer, minus two changes. The players are barefoot, and the ball is on fire.
“I would play fire soccer because fire [is cool] and it’s soccer,” said Sophomore Lorenzo Santiago
Apparently, this sport isn’t too crazy for our Spartans to handle.
The competitors spend months preparing themselves physically, spiritually, and mentally. Their preparation includes months of preparing their spirit by performing rituals to become invulnerable to fire, such as reciting their aurad-aurad (special prayer), fasting for 21 days, and performing matigeni, which is fasting for a day then going an entire night with no sleep.
Their spiritual life isn’t the only thing that changes. The player’s diets must avoid eating foods cooked by fire and those containing elements of life. The night of the big game, the players soak in salt and other non-flammable spices and say one last prayer. Immediately afterwards, they streak out onto the field for a heated game of fire soccer.
The players are not the only things that undertake special preparation. A normal soccer ball would quickly be turned to ash if lit on fire, so a more durable material is required. The solution is to make the ball out of a coconut.
First, they drain the liquid by making small incisions in the coconut, and then it is soaked in kerosene or petroleum for a week to 30 minutes.
Then, the ball is lit on fire, and burns brightly long after the games are done and dusted.
But some Spartans aren’t on board with kicking a flaming ball around
“That sounds dangerous,” said sophomore Jessica Laudie. “I probably wouldn’t play it.”
The players are devoted to playing this game for spiritual reasons but it is also played as a competition weaved in with technique. It is similar to soccer except when a coach uses a metaphor and tells a player not too keep the ball for too long because it will burn a foot.—literally.