Growing up in Western Europe it is probably not surprising that my first answer to the question football is. Like most boys, I grew up ball at the foot and I was only 6 six when I joined the local youth of the professional team.
On days without training, living pretty close to the ground, I was mostly found playing on any of the pitches, or watching the pros train. One of the biggest bonuses of being a member of the youth setup was that we had free entry to all games and thus at young age already I was used to standing on the terraces and shouting my team forward. Nothing as moving as multiple thousands of fans doing the same.
Both schools I attended during K12 also had 5-a-side goals and every break was spent kicking a ball. Yet, in secondary, I started to discover new sports as we regularly played basketball, handball, and especially volleyball.
As I grew up, being somebody focused on the team strength, I came to like volleyball always more and when it comes to actively participating then volleyball is definitely my preferred sport.
The reason for that?
In volleyball you are only as good as the weakest link in the team and that’s a component of the game which I particularly like.
Yet, contrarily to football, I only rarely watch volleyball when it’s on TV. Football though, football - and especially the Champions League now - keeps me up at night now I live in Asia and don’t benefit favorable kick-off times anymore. And yes, in some hours when most Asians are asleep, I will be watching two Champions League games.
The beautiful game is back.