There, each Sunday night from now till July, groups play seven-a-side soccer on synthetic turf in entrance of a minuscule public of some hundred visitors. There are not any ticket gross sales, video games can’t be discovered on any tv channel in or exterior Spain, but lots of of 1000’s of eyes — younger eyes almost certainly— are already watching on telephones, tablets and computer systems by way of the Internet.

Welcome to the Kings League, the most recent brainchild of Piqué following his overhauling of tennis’ Davis Cup. The former Spain and Barcelona defender retired in November simply in time give his full focus to launching his model of soccer.

The beginner league is a mixture of outdated and the brand new. It consists of recognized soccer personalities like former Real Madrid goalkeeper Iker Casillas, who’s a president, or proprietor, of one of many 12 groups, and ex-Manchester City striker Sergio Agüero, who’s a president-player, in addition to a number of retired Spanish league gamers. In Round One, Mexico star Chicharito made a one-off look as a “ringer” despite the fact that he’s an lively participant for the LA Galaxy.

For Joan Capdevila, a onetime elite left again who helped Spain win the 2010 World Cup and 2008 European championship, it’s mainly an opportunity to get again on the market.

“Anytime I can, I try to put on my soccer boots,” the 44-year-old Capdevila, who retired in 2017, informed the Associated Press after enjoying Sunday. “So it is a pleasure to be here and see what it is like from the inside. (I’ll do) anything that puts me in contact with a soccer ball, since it is a passion that I have had since I was little.”

It can also be an outlet for younger native gamers, who make up the majority of the league, to be seen after they handed tryouts and a draft. Many of them needed to go away their small golf equipment, like David Soriano, a 23-year-old defender who minimize ties together with his fifth-tier facet the place he performed in tiny stadiums and whose video games had been hardly ever, if ever, seen on any display screen.

“After thinking it over a lot I opted for the Kings League and I have no regrets,” Soriano informed the AP. “This is of another magnitude (compared to this previous club). Loads of people are watching. It is an opportunity to be noticed and continue growing.”

The parallels, nevertheless, to skilled 11-on-11 soccer finish there.

Most of the presidents of Kings League groups aren’t from sports activities. They are extraordinarily well-liked Internet figures in Spain and the Spanish-speaking world, “streamers,” YouTubers and “influencers” whose public almost certainly has hazy recollections, if any in any respect, of when Capdevila and Casillas had been kings of the game. Those legions of tens of millions of followers at the moment are potential viewers of the Kings League, which is proven totally free on the Twitch platform well-liked for its streaming of e-sports and videogames.

“The King’s League was born out of a reflection on the way football is today and because there is a part of the audience that believes that football is sometimes becoming a boring product, that ninety minutes is too long, and that things don’t happen and sometimes there are draws,” Kings League CEO Oriol Querol informed The Associated Press.

That meant, Querol mentioned, making certain that “three minutes don’t go by” with out one thing taking place to maintain viewers engaged.

Thus the Kings League’s wacky guidelines.

Kickoffs are like water polo with the groups racing out to the ball in midfield. Similar to ice hockey, a yellow card earns a participant a two-minute exclusion; a crimson card means a group should wait 5 minutes earlier than substituting the expelled participant. Draws are determined in a penalty shootout, the place gamers begin from midfield and have 5 seconds to attain, a components Major League Soccer used within the Nineteen Nineties. Substitutions are limitless.

Most enticingly, every group coach attracts a “gold card” earlier than kickoff that provides him one “secret weapon.” They embody having a free penalty kick at any level, excluding a rival participant for 2 minutes, and that any objectives scored by the group within the subsequent two minutes rely double. A brand new card simply launched will permit groups to deploy Piqué himself on the sphere of their service.

After objectives, flares shoot sparks from behind the online whereas strobe lights flash and spotlights swirl. Video critiques are carried out on an enormous display screen the place gamers and coaches can argue and attempt to sway the referee, who wears one of many a number of cameras and microphones.

And then there are the gimmicks straight from the world of fiction or movie: a masked participant named “Enigma” has performed, and Agüero himself performed his first match dressed as a clown.

The solely catch to the design of continuous spectacle are the stoppages attributable to the excessive balls that hit the rafters.

But all in all, it appears to be working.

The league says its peak viewership has reached 1.3 million. On Sunday, some 700,000 had been following by way of Twitch or TikTok even whereas Real Madrid was enjoying at Athletic Bilbao in one of many Spanish league’s largest rivalries.

Companies have taken discover. Sponsors embody Adidas and Spotify. McDonald’s supply service is among the many advertisers.

Barcelona, the “real” soccer membership, appears keen to not be left behind. Barcelona president Joan Laporta appeared on Piqué’s pre-game present final week to say that he’ll open Camp Nou to host the Kings League Final Four in March.

The Kings League has additionally caught the eye of, in concept, its biggest rival. Spanish league president Javier Tebas has known as it a “circus” that “cannot compare with the soccer industry.”

Could he have purpose to fret?

Twenty-year-old Marc León was rewarded with a invitation alongside together with his two associates after they based a fan membership for Rayo Barcelona and acquired observed by its president on social media. They bang a drum, wave a flag and sing pep songs throughout Rayo’s video games in a vestige of old-school soccer fandom that has slipped into what’s in actuality an enormous audio-visual manufacturing set.

For León, he has time sufficient in his life for each sorts of soccer.

“It’s different. You are not going to beat the traditional soccer that we have grown up with,” mentioned León. “Like the other day when we came here, after we went running home to watch Barça play Madrid. We enjoy both.”

Yet if the Spanish league is already “traditional” for León and his buddies, maybe Piqué has already gained.