Over 800 players joined the Equal Playing Field (EPF) initiative in France to break the record for the longest match played over three days.
Luciane Lauffer
Lyon, the host city for the FIFA Women’s World Cup semi-finals and finals was chosen to be the place in which the Equal Playing Field (EPF) united women – and men – from more than 60 countries to break the world record for the longest football match played over five days. Due to the heat wave that has hit Europe, the original proposal had to be reduced to three consecutive days. Even so, the record for the longest 5-a-side was achieved and celebrated.
The event was held at the at Groupama Olympic Lyonnais Academy, which is used by the Ligue 1 club Olympique Lyonnais as their training venue. The final numbers accounted for 807 registered people from all ages, genders and abilities to play in a non-stop 5-a-side game. The game went on until all teams travelling to Lyon had played.
The record was broken in the morning of 1st July, precisely at 8:28am on pitch 5. The previous record of 676 players was broken when the 677th player, Adidas volunteer Micael Griggs, came onto the pitch after 63 hours and 02 minutes of continuous all-day-all-night play. The final whistle was blown at 1:35pm, with a final score of 399 goals for the Red team against 369 goals from the Blue team. The continuous game went on for exactly 68 hours and 09 minutes.
However, getting the ball rolling was not the only thing happening at the Groupama grounds. Over the original five days of the event, there were a series of special programs to keep everyone involved. Entitled Festival of Football, over 30 workshops were held on coaching sessions as well as film screenings and World Cup watch parties, all focused on women in football, bringing together teams and football experts from many countries. These events were attended by over 500 people.
Was that enough? Well, not for EPF: At the same time, a second world record was also attempted during this event. Due to the many different nationalities present at the Festival of Football, the EPF team staged a full 11-a-side game on a second pitch, aiming for the most nationalities to ever play in a football game. Aiming for 50, there were 54 different nationalities registered to play in the original 5-a-side match, which were coming from the pool of staff, volunteers and participants already on-site at the Festival of Football. The stats from that match are still being verified to confirm if this world record attempt was successful.
THE EVENT IN NUMBERS:
Goals Scored in the World Record Game: 768
Number of players who played in the game: 807
Number of hours until World Record: 63hrs 02 min
Number of hours played total: 68 hrs 09 min
Number of Nations the players came from: Over 60
Number of workshops held: 32
Number of people attending: Over 500
Previous records
This was the third world record event promoted by EPF. In 2017 and 2018, two other world records were broken in different parts of the world.
The first event took place on the 24th June 2017, when 32 female professionals, competitive amateurs and graduates of sports charities from more than 20 countries traveled to Tanzania and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to play the world record of the highest elevation regulation game in history. More than 1.75km higher than the world’s highest professional stadium and higher even than Everest Base Camp, it was an 11-a-side, full-field, FIFA standard match on a volcanic ash pitch at 5714m.
WE. DID. IT. After 69 hours of continuous play, 807 players on the pitch and a score of 404 – 369, we completed our world record attempt for the largest number of players to appear continuously in a 5-a-side match. *official numbers to follow! #AnyGirlAnyWhere @twitter @adidas pic.twitter.com/MBtdx0AGf2
— Equal Playing Field (@EPFinitiative) July 1, 2019
The teams included World Cup, Champions League and Olympic professional players, more than 10 women’s national team players, from ages ranging between 15 and 55 years old. The trip also included games against local Tanzanian women’s teams and launched EPF’s Altitude Football project with football clinics in Tanzania and South Africa.
The second event, held last year, broke the 2nd World Record football match held in the lowest elevation game in history at the Dead Sea (Ghor al-Safi). This time, 2000 people attended the game including HRH Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, and 500,000 people were reached through media coverage.
After all these different challenges, what could be next – a game on the moon? Who knows…
Photo – Luciane Lauffer was one of the record breakers, playing for one hour at 8 am on Saturday 29th June, when the heat was already intense.
