Among all sports professionally played in the world, one of the most demanding when it comes to skills is football: not only is it necessary for a professional player to be physically fit, to have great lung capacity, to sustain both bursts of energy and a steady, prolonged effort, but also to be sharp and aware mentally. Taking this into account, it shouldn’t be a surprise that football players are constantly on the look for a new tool to add to their shed.
They are always picking up whatever precise skill they might find useful from other sports and disciplines in general. As Andrea Pirlo once famously said: “football is played with the brain, your legs are just the tool”.
So, why wouldn’t they try and sharpen their ability to play the game, while playing Bingo?
Bingos Origin
The origins of bingo can be traced back to the 1500s, when it was played in Italy, being called Lo Giuoco Del Lotto d’Italia. At this point, in its more primitive form, it was basically Italy’s national lottery. A few centuries later Edwin S. Lowe, a toy salesman from New York, came across a game at a fair in Jacksonville, Georgia: the pitchman told him that he had seen it being played at various fairs in Germany.
The pitchman took the idea, and started to play it with his friends, which were ecstatic about it. Such enthusiasm prompted Lowe to create a boxed version of the game, which, the legend says, was called “Bingo” because of an exclamation of enthusiasm of one of Lowe’s friends. Bingo then became the name of a similar game that was already played all over the UK, “housey-housey”, and reached its actual modern form. Modern and also wildly popular: regular Bingo players – meaning people that play at least twice a week – are estimated to be around three million all over the UK, with a particular incidence among the older. It is also estimated that roughly eight percent of the people in the UK play Bingo!
How Would Bingo develop a Malta Football players skills?
One of the main reasons for Bingo success is obviously the socialisation that comes with it. The game is played at venues, when anybody can meet their peers, and is a great way of fostering a community. Besides its social aspect, Bingo doesn’t require a particular skill set, which means that it can be basically played by everybody. The skillset much lie the ones for football can be learnt and developed through time and practice. Of course, a more experienced player will probably play differently, but anybody could start. Which the same can be said about football. The more you play the more you develop your own pattern and structure much like the way a Malta player plays on the field; they get better in their position and learn new tactics the more they play.
The official national game is played with a 90 number set, but there are versions with 75 and 85 numbers. And in all of these different versions, the same game always retains the same exact fun and thrilling aspect. Even when playing on Bingo sites UK. As a football player playing such a game has a number of advantages and can be helpful to develop skills that will translate on the pitch. The different versions require different set ups and this can be translated into the Malta football teams player positioning ang game play.
First of all, it requires a huge level of concentration. Secondly, being such a sociable game, played in venues all over the country, is a great opportunity to build a sense of camaraderie, and to help individuals to understand how to properly function in a social environment, such as the locker room. Both football and Bingo gatherings are typically held in a communal setting, such as a local park, Bingo Hall, stadium, or community centre. These are all great places for people to meet up and socialise. In smaller communities, where everyone knows each other by name, these occasions can become a great place to interact with local people.
Knowing how to conduct oneself is a vital need for a football player, who will have to interact in a number of different contexts, with people he shares most of his days with, and while possibly being under a lot of pressure.
Which is another important part of the similarities shared by Bingo and football. The level of sheer and pure excitement that hearing the last number on your board called triggers is without a speck of doubt comparable to the one which erupts into a stadium when the home team scores. It is, of course, different for a number of reasons, but the eruption of joy is the same, and is all that counts.
Being able to deal with that pressure, and to deal with it in accordance with the environment which you are in is a really important skill, more so on the football pitch. As unorthodox as it may seem, playing Bingo is a great way to improve in regard to that, and many other skills. Bingo is also known to improve your brains recall and your cognitive function which is vital to Malta’s football players performance as they need to remember their positioning and play and it will improve their decision making once they are on the pitch.