Animal Crossing: How to create a football pitch on New Horizons game

The release of Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been perfectly timed for fans of the video game series amid a global lockdown.

Released in March 2020, the Nintendo Switch game has sold over 13 million copies around the world, rocketing it into the top 10 best-selling games on the console.

Football is yet another aspect of day-to-day life that has been put on hold, but New Horizons offers players the chance to fill their time by creating a football pitch of their very own.

A number of users have already done the hard work for many, creating the complex patterns required for such a design and putting them online for others to download.

Whether you choose to create the pitch yourself or use one already put together, here’s everything you need to know.

Unlocking football pitch creating on Animal Crossing: New Horizons

There are several steps that you need to go through before you can access the terraforming privileges required to assemble the pitch and also the terminal in the Able Sisters tailor shop, where you can download designs.

The latter is the first step you will reach in your New Horizons adventure. Once you have built your island’s museum and Nook’s Cranny, the island shop, a hedgehog named Mabel will appear in the shop.

Mabel will continue to appear on the island plaza, selling clothes and other items from a small stall, before finally deciding to open up a permanent store. How many visits it will take for her to decide to move to your island varies from player to player.

Once you have placed the plot, it takes two days for the shop to open, and then you can access the terminal in the back of the Able Sisters store – though you do need a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to do so.

The subscription costs £3.49 ($3.99) a month, £6.99 ($7.99) for three months or £17.99 ($19.99) for the year, for an individual membership. Family memberships, which can cover up to eight accounts, are also available for £31.49 ($34.99) as a 12-month subscription.

On the terminal, you can enter 12-digit ID codes for designs that have been created by other players for clothes, hats and, most importantly, a football pitch.

To be able to place these designs on the ground of your island, you will then need to be granted access to the Island Designer app by Tom Nook.

Once you have completed the building of the museum, Nook’s Cranny and the Able Sisters shop, you will be on your way to earning a three-star reputation for your island.

Earning a three-star reputation is key as it will draw K.K. Slider, the lovable singing dog of the Animal Crossing world, to your island to perform. Once he has done that, Tom Nook will give you the Island Designer app.

You will need to recruit more residents for your island to earn the reputation, while generally improving the image of the island with more bridges, inclines, decorations, flowers, fruit and so on, as well as keeping on top of those ever-growing weeds.

With the Island Designer app, you can then change the terrain of your island, to create your very own football pitch.

You can design the tiles to be thrown onto the ground yourself, using the Custom Designs app on your Nookphone. Or you can download the work of others at the terminal in the Able Sisters shop.

How to download Animal Crossing: New Horizons football pitch designs

There are a number of designs that are available across the internet, including this special Champions League design from Twitter user, Chromie (Designer ID: MA-6291-7067-8693).

This design will also withstand all seasons as it has the grass elements built into the design. To download the designs, all you have to do is input their Designer ID at the terminal.

The same user also has a simple pitch design, without the large print in the middle, which can be downloaded using their Designer ID.

There are countless other different designs all over the internet.

How to buy soccer balls, boots, jerseys, nets and seats on Animal Crossing: New Horizons

The final touches to your football pitch, of course, will be to add the nets and the ball.

The football nets can be purchased with your Nook Miles at Residents Services. Simply access the Nook Stop, select ‘Redeem Nook Miles’ and under the ‘items’ tab you will find a ‘soccer goal’ available for 4000 Nook Miles. Once ordered, each goal will arrive in your mailbox the next day.

The soccer ball is a little trickier to find as it will come into your hands by chance while playing the game. It could appear in your shop one day, you could shoot one down from a balloon with your slingshot, it could fall out of a tree or one of your fellow islanders may gift you it.

You may have already come across and not realised. It’s worth checking the ‘Nook Shopping’ option at the Nook Stop. If not, ask around fellow New Horizons players for the centre piece to your brand new football pitch.

To add extra touches to your pitch, you can add seats for spectators, while there are football jerseys and other athletic wear, such as football boots, that you will come across in the game.