August 24, 2026
Winning Means Nothing If Teammates Are Left Behind
Have you ever felt completely ignored by your team just because you were having a bad day? Or maybe you felt the frustration of being judged for a mistake when you were secretly struggling inside?
If you haven’t felt that firsthand, imagine playing a quick game of football where winning is all that matters. Now picture carrying an invisible weight, like severe anxiety or a physical limitation, while your teammates pass right over you to score. Standard sports culture often rewards raw performance while leaving struggling individuals behind.
Most group activities prioritize physical skill and competition. However, this dynamic often excludes people facing hidden emotional struggles or physical boundaries. When victory is the only focus, invisible barriers become impossible to cross. Participants end up feeling isolated, frustrated, and excluded.
The Empathy Match
This Empathy and Inclusion Football Game fixes this issue head-on.
Built for groups of 12 to 24 participants aged 14 and up, this 45-minute workshop uses football to teach connection and foster diversity and inclusion through teamwork.
It starts with an icebreaker, “Crazy Rondo,” a fast circle-passing energizer, before moving into three different rounds.
To score a point, teams must complete five passes involving at least three different players.
In Round 1, gameplay is standard.
In Round 2, players draw cards assigning them physical limitations or emotional conditions to embody.
Round 3 swaps these roles to show different perspectives. Everything ends with a guided reflection session.
For the detailed, step-by-step version of the game, click here.
This game is designed to change how people treat each other under pressure. It challenges quick judgments, impatience, and competitive anger, turning them into awareness and support. By forcing players to experience hidden obstacles for themselves, it replaces the urge to criticize with a genuine effort to understand.
Use this activity in youth work, Erasmus+ projects, corporate team-building retreats, sports coaching, and school anti-bullying programs.
How will you change your next group activity to include everyone? Shift the focus from scoring goals to understanding others—because behind every missed pass is a story, a bad day, or a struggle you cannot see.
This project was funded by the European Union through the Erasmus+ programme.
Maria Papoutsani