Soccer in slow motion at swamp world cup in Finland

By Agnieszka Flak

HYRYNSALMI, Finland (Reuters) - Mud up to her waist and the yellow wig hanging sideways, swamp-soccer veteran Tuula Brocke reached for the ball just barely a metre in front of her, but her foot would not move an inch.

Playing ball in the swamp is like a slow-motion movie coming to a halt every time a player sinks in a hole, she said.

"Your opponent snatches the ball right in front of your nose, but you are stuck in the mass of dung and cannot move at all," she said, while wiping dried crust of her arms and face.

Brocke's team, the G-Spots, is one of 340 which competed in this year's Swamp Soccer World Championships, held in northern Finland for the 10th time in a row.

Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Russia were among the growing number of foreign teams. Organisers estimate some 10,000 people attended the event each of the three days.

A natural swamp outside the town of Hyrynsalmi was converted into 22 playing fields -- marked with yellow tape, more resembling pig pens than a world cup site.

Each time six players were trotting and crawling through the muddy field. There was no offside, no definite penalty box an unlimited substitutions were made on the fly.

Even so, each team looked for their own tactic to bring the ball forward in this chaotic and largely uncontrolled game.