The Italians are behind their football team every bit as much as the English are supporting theirs. Calcio, as football, is called in Italian, is a word that has its origins in a game played in Florence in the 16th century.
This year’s games have been postponed until September when the four districts of Florence will do battle. Teams of 27 players can use a degree of brutality to win not seen in most contact sports, except Mixed Martial Arts.
“The objective of the game is simple. Two teams of 27 players face off with one ball and two goals that are about a foot and half tall and as wide as the stadium. The game lasts for 50 minutes and whoever has the most points at the end, wins. You score one point for every goal and give the other team half of a point if a shot misses the goal. There is only one rule when it comes to playing—don’t kill your opponent.
What makes Calcio Storico unique is its sheer brutality. The goal of the game is to attack the other team in an effort to advance the ball towards the goal. This means kicking, punching, tackling, and pinning your opponents to ground. Players use whatever means necessary to ensure their team wins—except for sucker punches, kicks to the head, and ganging up on players, which is not allowed in the modern game.
This sport is unique to Florence in that it is only played in the city, but it is also deeply entrenched in the city’s culture. There are only four teams that play Calcio Storico and they consist of the four districts, or Quartiere, of the city—the Azzurri of Santa Croce, the Rossi of Santa Maria Novella, the Bianchi of Santa Spirito, and the Verdi of San Giovanni. The players for each team are simply just residents of each district and they receive no compensation for participating, just city-wide bragging rights if they win.
Calcio Storico takes place in a makeshift stadium on the Piazza Santa Croce in the center of Florence during the month of June. Two teams face off against each other in the first round, and then the winners advance to the final on June 24, the same day as the feast of Saint John, the patron saint of Florence.”
source https://primetimesportstalk.com/2018/07/04/calcio-storico-the-worlds-most-unusual-sport/
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