Sports anime that actually get the sport right?

[luvuyo_n]

My son got me into Blue Lock last year and I enjoyed it, but as someone who has watched a lot of real football, half of it is pure fantasy. Nobody "devours" anybody on a Saturday afternoon in the local league. That's fine, it's the fun part, but it made me curious which sports anime people think are the most accurate about how the game is really played.

Haikyuu is my answer for volleyball. The rotations, the setter dumps, the way a team falls apart when the receive goes, all of that matched what I saw when a friend's daughter played school volleyball.

For football I'm less sure. Inazuma Eleven is obviously out. Is Days or Giant Killing closer to the real thing? I've heard Giant Killing is more about the coach and tactics, which sounds like my kind of show. Any other sports where the anime got it right, or badly wrong?

 

[luvuyo_n]

Small update on my own question. I watched the first episodes of Giant Killing tonight and it's exactly what I was hoping for: a coach, a club that keeps losing, players who are ordinary until someone gives them a job they can do.

What it gets right is the boring part of football. Most of a season is not finals, it's a long list of ordinary weekends, and a club's fixture list looks like https://chippaunited-fc.co.za/ more than like a tournament bracket, one league game after another with the odd cup tie. Giant Killing actually shows that grind, which Blue Lock never tries to.

So my updated answer for football: Giant Killing for realism, Blue Lock for fun, and I still haven't tried Days. For other sports, Haikyuu stays on top for me.