The LEGO Football (Soccer) subtheme was the first sport featured in the Sports theme and was released in 2000. Football sets play principle involved minifigures on fixed positions that were mounted on flexible stands in the center of small pits on the field. With this play concept, two large football fields for team matches and several small training setups with fewer figures were released.
2004 LEGO Sets
2004 was a shakeup year at LEGO, coming off of 2003 with record losses. Some significant events include the release of the QUATRO System for very young children, and most notably the replacement of many long-standing LEGO colors including gray, dark gray, brown and violet and the introduction of some new colors like light nougat which ultimately became the skin tone for many minifigures. In 2004, The LEGO Group created a partnership with Ferrari and a number of LEGO Ferrari sets were released that year based on Ferrari’s Formula 1 racing cars. New themes released in 2004 included Maersk, Knight's Kingdom II and Ferrari under the Racers theme. LEGO discontinued the Adventurers Orient Expedition, the original Spider-Man theme, LEGO World City and Gravity Games.