"So ist er gut"

Question

I was reading an article about a football manager talking at the end of a match:

"So ist Fußball. So ist er gut. So ist er toll."

I know that so is a complicated word in German, but for the sentence

So ist Fußball

I thought so meant "That"

but in

So ist er gut

I thought it meant "That is good."

But what is the purpose of er in that sentence.

What purpose does it serve?

Answer 1

In this sentence, »so« means »in this manner« / »when done that way« / etc. You can read more about this meaning in https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/so_derartig_solch_genauso_etwa#Bedeutung1a, entry 1a. Thus one may render the sentences as

That way is how football is. When done that way, it is good. When done that way, it is great.

A more idiomatic translation might be

That's football. It's good like that. It's great like that.

So the »er« is a personal pronoun, masculine, which refers to football (»Fußball«).