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Sports are getting way too serious these days. There are juicing scandals, fan fistfights and bench-clearing team-on-team brawls in just about every sport. It’s all just getting a little too heady, don’t you think?

Well, these Italians sure did. So, they took matters into their own hands, and created the hilarious new sport of Bubble Soccer, which finally combines the body contact of sumo wrestling, with the majesty of soccer and the zany antics of old Warner Bros cartoons, much to the amusement of Japan’s netizens.

The rules are simple: Encase your entire upper body in a giant plastic bubble, then play soccer.

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Manufactured by a German company called Flipsport, the LoopyBall plastic bubble shields players from harm and makes them at least 10 times bouncier than a non-bubble-coated soccer player, allowing for hilarious slapstick body checks and tackles.

Bubble Soccer games are mesmerizing to watch, inspiring equal parts childish wonderment and sheer terror as human bubbles fly violently through the air, legs akimbo. The most difficult aspect of the sport, as the video proves, seems to be perfecting the art of recovering from a fall by rolling vertically and landing back on your feet. Failing this tricky maneuver results in the fallen player flailing hilariously around on the ground for most of the match.

▼The player in the yellow shorts demonstrates how not to recover from a hit.

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The sport also seems to bring out the worst in some players, as it’s clear in the video that some guys have no interest whatsoever in the ball and are just continuously chasing down other players and smashing into them, probably cackling wildly like sugar-addled preschoolers.

Still, though, Bubble Soccer looks like hilarious good fun and we’d love to give it a try. Although, we’d probably end up forgetting about the ball entirely a few seconds in. Check out the video below:

Source: Web R25