Spanish artist Maider Lopez made a work I am painfully jealous of. Her Polder Cup is played in the Dutch polder landscape, and her football fields are bisected by the little canals us Dutch people lovingly call ‘slootjes’ or ‘little ditches’.  Why didn’t I think of this? I may be too Dutch altogether.

Translated a text from Holland Art Avenue about the Polder Cup:

That art and football can go together is proven by spanish artist Maider López, who instituted the Polder Cup. A projecft in which football fields were drawn in Ottoland, near Rotterdam, on the green pastures of the Ottoland polder. The lines bisect ditches, lines of trees, etc. Interested? Play the game at sept 4th 2010.

López: “The rules of the game are in part made by the way the field is shaped. If one changes the shape, the rules change, and thus the game of football as we know it. It becomes a new game, and players have to invent new tactics.” Most important is the new rule: don’t cross a ditch. Another new one: if the ball goes in the ditch, the opponents get to play it.

And a quote from magazine ‘Trouw” today: “Winner was the ‘Polderboys’ team. A penalty in front of an open goal was the clinch. Many players were wet through and through, because a number of slidings ended in the ditches.