In my previous texts on aesthetics of sport and of football, the accent was on dramatic aesthetic properties and on everyday aesthetics as a proper framework for the aesthetics of sport in general and football in particular. Here, following this starting point, the character of football as a game of social interactions and its character of purposive sport are examined, to find out what could be the most important aesthetic condition for playing the game and being-in-the-game. To get at the (...) core of the aesthetic side of football, the concept of aesthetic imagination is introduced as a necessary condition for playing the game of football, and three aesthetic regimes for creation of possible worlds or symbolic forms such as football are discussed. There are two steps where the aesthetic imagination helps. The first one is at the entrance where we are leaving ordinary everyday life behind, being ready to accept the world of.. (shrink)