Such a touching story - truly shows how football can unite us regardless of politics, rivalries, war, and hate. Truly awe inspiring. Great job giving this story some notice tifo!
Yeah but Football can also break us apart. Fanbase related hate have even kill in the name of Football. I have witnessed those stupid hooliganism all my life.
I woke up to get a notification of this video and this is one of the very best videos ever. It is beautiful yet sad but also very true. Merry Christmas to all...
Such a coincidence. I paint and was really thinking of trying to make a painting of this like as you described: a flicker of hope in the misery that is this war. I think this is one of the most beautiful historic stories and always brings tears to my eyes. I will work on my composition again today and merry christmas Tiffo! Love your football related stories especially a lot!
I know that you don't celebrate Christmas but these men did. Christmas spirit united them, not football. The game of football came as a consequence of the truce...
@@shinglemcdingle4093 i know it happen during christmas of 1914, what a heartwarming story, i respected all those soldiers and their religions, but i didn't put my comment to that specific circumstances, it can happen to anybody of many different religions, something similar happen in many countries, when the power of football could stop war (or at least for a while). oh how i love this beautiful sport.
This such a good video, as always! They should look at the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to military violence and football. For example, the 100 hour war between Honduras and El Salvador began because of football in 1969
I read that there were quite a few incidents where soldiers entered no-man's-land for the "truce" and were just mown down by gunfire for their efforts. It wasn't the same everywhere unfortunately
So beautiful yet so tragic. What a waste of lives. After Christmas day many British and German soldiers were very reluctant to shoot at each other so the generals on both sides had to step in and they threatened to shoot their own men if they didn't shoot the enemy. Lest We Forget.
i remember reading about this back in high school, and then in college one of my professors had us watch a movie about it the last day of class. It is truly one of my favorite moments in history. It not only shows you that sports can transcend cultural and language divides but also that whilst kings and generals declare the wars "for great honor and glory," it's the average citizen who has no stake in the war risking his life for a cause he may not believe in. WWI has so many fascinating stories like this.
A moment of working class solidarity through football. It wasn't enough to bring down empires then and it never will be, but it helps and is necessary.
The channel “extra credits” did a great video on this too a couple years ago, on their “extra history” series, and have tons of great series of history. Have a merry Christmas everyone and enjoy whatever you do or watch!
I am from India and we have this story in our CBSE English textbook of 7th grade. 💙Love the game of football . . . Btw did they really lost on penalties? And then poms said that they would've won if it was a game of cricket 😂
HELLO CHIRAG. THE ENGLAND TEAMS DID LOSE ON PENALTIES THAT DAY. MY GRANDFATHER MCGROVER TURNDROP LEFT ME HIS DIARIES THROUGH TESTAMENT. IN ONE OF HIS EARLIEST KEEPINGS HE LAMENTED THE LOSS IN PENALTY SHOOTOUT. THIS HAS MADE ME REMEMBER MY YOUNGER DAYS WHEN THE SCHOOLYARD BOYS PRACTICED THEIR PENALTIES AND IMAGINE NETTING FOR THE LIONS IN THE WORLD CUP.
If they had played cricket the English would have won. But I don't think something like this would have never happened with cricket. The reason is that no German has a fucking clue what cricket is or how it is played.
Weird how one or two matches on Xmas day along a front over a thousand miles long gets all the attention, meanwhile just a few miles up and down the rest of the lines women were still slaughtering each tier blissfully unaware of the odd kick about! Which I still think is a myth! What men with weapons kicked a ball along the bumpiest bobbliest blown up surface ever seen in modern history littered with land mines!?!?! Really?! With a small score line? Sure
When two of my favorite subjects collide- world history and football. Hope this can turn more ppl to appreciate history though, much we can learn. WW1 was brutal in that outdated tactics met modern day weapons resulting in the slaughter of tens of millions of young men. Imagine 200,000 souls gone in a single afternoon just to gain a few yards.. men simply walking into machine gun fire.. horrific. Lest we forget
My granddad was there, he said that what happened was massively exaggerated, we had a football and was having a kick about and the ball went over to the Germans and they kicked it back, it happened a couple of times and then they started kicking the ball to them on purpose, then the two Germans would kick the ball back. One of them spoke a bit of English. The whole thing is exaggerated and all of the soldiers started saying they had played football with the Germans but really hardly any of them had, only 10 or so if you can even call it that. It spread through all of the trenches and basically became a massive lie just from a couple of Germans kicking a ball back. Strangely it was only us who lied about it, if you look at German accounts only about 20 or so claimed to have played football with us
I wanna read stuff from Athletic but the subscription charges are not encouraging. The narrator has a pulling enticement to offer through this channel but sadly I cannot read such beautifully crafted stories and anecdotes about the very game that I hold so dear. The realization intermixed with a strange sensation after the end of your videos is bittersweet as I cannot read whenever I want but at least I have someone to tell me the untold. The unlikeliest events and succession of happenings to which Football used to be and still is a subject. The passion, the sadness, the smiles it propagated in such machinists lives. Tifo is a legendary channel.
@@thewysterianlord3661 - The Bible doesn't say anything about December the 25th, it doesn't say what date Jesus Christ was born on. This whole thing is actually an insult to Christianity, it's just a mockery. 'Beware the traditions of man.'
ron sae Christmas was originally celebrated on the 25th of December due to the persecution of Christians by the Roman empire. Christmas was celebrated half way through the Roman holiday ‘Saturnalia’ to hide the fact that christians were celebrating a different religion.
I was waiting for this video, I figured that it would come out around Christmas, thank you. I love this story because it shows that humanity prevails even in the most inhuman circumstances, for once, soldiers on both sides saw each other as fellow humans. And football was involved. Great stuff
This is a great story, however elaborated over time. What isn't widely reported is the stories of many soldiers excited at the prospect of a kick-about going over the top only to be gunned down. In fact, only a small section of western front participated in the 'beautiful game' the rest suffered a horrible trench life. Merry Christmas 🥂
You bet the higher ups didn't like it. They couldn't risk front-line soldiers realising that they had a lot more in common with their immediate enemy than with their own officers.
Brings a tear to my eye. Ordinary men from both sides who months previous had absolutely no reason to hate each other or kill one another. War is always the young and poor being sent to do the dirty deeds of the rich and powerful.
