European Legends National Tournament in Wolfsburg
EFDN member VfL Wolfsburg organises a prominent national European Legends Walking Football Tournament. The event takes place on the 12th of November in the enormous Soccafive Arena in Wolfsburg. Registration is possible from the age of 50 as a single person or as a group (6 – 10 persons) until the 4th of November.
VfL Wolfsburg is one of the 13 clubs and foundations that participate in the EFDN programme ‘European Legends’, which is a Walking Football project for people that are over 50 years old. The other clubs are: Fulham and Tottenham Hotspur from the UK; Feyenoord, PSV Eindhoven, NEC Nijmegen and Vitesse Betrokken from The Netherlands; KAA Gent and Club Brugge from Belgium; the Norwegian club Vålerenga IF; VfL Wolfsburg and Werder Bremen from Germany; Anorthosis Famagusta from Cyprus and Benfica Foundation from Portugal.
All the participating clubs have set up their own Walking Footbal teams – with all 50+ players – which are training every week. The European Legends teams consist of more or less 30 participants and they come together 20 weeks in a row. Every session starts with a cup of coffee (or tea) and a nice chat. After that the team trains for an hour to ninety minutes. The team is trained by a professional trainer who knows what he is doing.
After 20 weeks of training the teams are ready to meet each other in a National European Legends Championship. This tournament is the upbeat to an even bigger event: a true European Championship. This tournament will take place in September 2017 and it concludes the Walking Football project. The team that wins the European Championship may call itself European Legends Champion 2017.
Walking Football is exactly what it sounds like: it is football where the players walk instead of run. The game is designed to keep fit or to maintain an active lifestyle regardless of age or fitness. The sport also supports people to continue their footballing career after abandoning the game because of age or injury. Walking Football players enjoy a lot of advantages, such as health benefits (decrease in heart rate, blood pressure, weight and improved mobility), but they also meet new people, therefor avoid becoming isolated, and interact with individuals and small groups.
European Legends
