Football or soccer, according to health experts, is a full-body workout that builds muscle tone, promotes bone strength, improves cardiovascular health and boosts cognitive skills and impulses. Playing it for at least a couple of hours per week can improve social skills and endurance, fight stress and aid in weight management.

According to Philippine Football Federation, the governing body of football associations in the country, the sport also promotes discipline especially among kids, which is the most important, one of the federation’s grassroots coordinators told DAILY TRIBUNE in an exclusive interview.

“Of course, since they will play with teammates, it will teach them teamwork and also how to balance the sport together with their academics,” the coordinator said.

Football clubs or schools, she noted, usually accept students as young as three or four or “as soon as the child could already follow instructions.”

“But during that age, you just let them play during the training,” she advised.

Getting physical is very important now more than ever, she said, since it is now “the era of the gadgets.”

“Kids should go outside and do any sport – football, basketball, whatever they like — for as long as they’re outdoors and not just always sitting down and playing with their gadgets.”