Diego Barajas Fernandez |
Madrid (EFE) the traditional sport with new rules more typical of video games and in which the show prevails.
In this tournament, which has become a phenomenon on social networks, former soccer players such as Kun Agüero, Iker Casillas and Ronaldinho, influencers, streamers and kids who, like Pol, went to a casting to be part of one of the the 12 teams in this championship.
“I would never have thought to reach this moment. You normalize situations that were not normal before,” said Pol, a 24-year-old from Barcelona who went from playing as an amateur and not having a presence on the networks, to being “half forced” to serve the almost 10,000 followers with those who count only on Twitter.
“It is very difficult for me to find a negative message in networks. Although I don’t quite believe all the good things they say about me. I continue to do my thing, with my feet on the ground, ”she says.
The Kings League and how it works
The Kings League is a social phenomenon that has more than 6 million followers on Tik Tok, 2 million on Instagram, 750,000 followers on Twitter or 2.7 million on Twitch.
It is a show that combines traditional football with rules that change the course of matches and surprises that are called “secret weapons” more typical of video games.
There are double goals at the end of the matches, the duels are 7 against 7, the coaches can use cards with improvements for their team, dice are thrown that modify the number of players on the field, each match lasts 40 minutes -two parts of 20 – and the action is breakneck.
“It is not something that is going to replace football. It is a format where many things happen. There is a lot of mystery, things can change very quickly, there are double goals… Some may consider it a perversion of football, I think it is an adaptation. It is very fun to play it. You are in tension all the time ”, he affirms.
In this sense, the presidents of each team are, in general, well-known content creators in networks or former players such as Casillas or Agüero themselves, and they have a budget to buy improvements, players and even bid to include them in their teams for time limited ex-elite soccer players, as happened with the Italian Andrea Pirlo or the Ukrainian Andriy Shevchenko.
The matches, which barely last half of a normal match, are played in a regular phase that culminates in a knockout phase to fight for the title. “For the youngest, the fact of watching 90 minutes of football as long as normal means that watching this type of format helps a lot to attract all kinds of audiences,” he adds.
mass phenomenon
A mass phenomenon that made the final of the winter tournament, played at the Camp Nou, host 92,522 spectators. “In the first event. It’s crazy. Not even Barça had that much capacity. I think that is what has impacted me the most. I have always played football, the issue of the rules you adapt little by little, at first it shocks you a lot because it is something that you are not used to doing, but the impact at the media level is what has surprised me the most ”, he highlights. .
Despite this impact, and having been chosen as the Most Valuable Player (MVP) on the last day of the league, Pol keeps his job in an outpatient clinic because being a Kings League player doesn’t allow him to make a living from it.
“He doesn’t pay us much, we can’t make a living from this, although what Piqué has always said is that he wants to turn the Kings League into something professional and that we can make a living from it,” he says.
For now, he hopes to be in the next ‘final four’ of the Kings League and Queens League summer tournament, in an event that changes scenery, he will go from the Camp Nou in Barcelona to the Atlético de Madrid stadium, Civitas Metropolitano, in a match that will be played on July 29.