
For football fans, the hobby can seem as much about the activities around the sport as the sport itself.
After all, a game only lasts around 90 minutes (extra time not included). When the final whistle blows, your thirst for all things football may not have been fully quenched.
This need to continue the thrill of the beautiful game might be why you talk to your friends about it, take to social media communities, or listen to podcasts from relevant figures.
A popular activity that might especially stand out for people in your position, however, is that of gaming – one that football fans are likely no stranger to.
Online Football Gaming
The most obvious option for many people considering this route will be the FIFA series (including EA Sports FC) due to the popularity of this series.
For football fans, this is often the go-to – it’s a digital recreation of the game that you can play offline to build up your own career or even your own club.
Alternatively, you could opt to play online, where you can challenge your friends while engaging with your hobby.
It’s the most direct way to go about enjoying football in a gaming context.
However, more than that, it might provide you with an ideal way to spend more time with your friends without having to arrange physical meet-ups, as this can lead to a situation where you only see them occasionally or barely at all.
Casino Games and Adjacent Experiences
There are degrees of separation that you can explore, however. Games like Rocket League are enormously popular – even to the point where they’re a feature of the esports community, which is ultimately much more akin to the experience of football than playing games like FIFA.
Rocket League, in particular, has the added advantage of being based on football in the first place. While this might not play into your decision hugely, as the rules copied over are quite simplistic, it can still help you to get your foot in the door.
That’s not all, however. In the football community, you might become familiar with online casinos like Jackpot City in Ontario.
Here, while you can find many of the games that you might expect, like blackjack or roulette, you can also find slots – and all of the varieties that come with that.
Paying any way you like and experiencing advanced audio-visual technology, you can enjoy games that are themed around football, such as Soccer Striker or Football Star.
Further Experiences
Once you’ve gotten to this point, though, you might not feel the need to remain locked in by the constraints of football.
Gaming is such a vast and varied landscape that there are any number of experiences out there that might relate more closely to your tastes.
While it can help to start with something that’s ultimately more familiar, an open mind and the right sense of curiosity can help you to expand your perspective.
For example, if you play FIFA (or similar games) and find that you prefer the offline campaign to playing online with friends, you might end up exploring long-form narrative games or RPGs that let you customize your own story over long periods of time.
