Play Football International Online

Football International came out for the Game Boy in 1990, developed by TOSE and published by Nintendo. It was one of the earlier sports titles on the handheld, arriving at a time when developers were still figuring out how to translate team-based action onto that small, green-tinted screen. You got a functional, no-frills soccer game that fit in your pocket, which was a novelty in itself back then.

You control a team of small, chunky players, moving the ball up the field with short passes or by dribbling past defenders. The main goal is simple: score more goals than the opposing team. Signature mechanics include a zoomed-out view for long passes and shots, which gives you a surprising amount of field awareness, and a slightly unpredictable physics system that makes every tackle and shot feel a bit risky. The pacing is fast, almost frantic, due to the small field and basic controls, leading to quick turnovers and sudden breakaways. It feels scrappy and immediate, like a chaotic kickabout that somehow makes perfect sense on the hardware.