Passion + Resilience = Football United (NSW)
Players from Sierra Leone and Sudan players compete together at the Glenwood Futsal competition
You will notice some new faces around the Glenwood Futsal Wednesday competition. The competition is only a few weeks old, but it is intense.
One team in particular is making an impact – “Football United”.
Football United
Come to a game and you will see highly charged robust competition between Football United and Bada Bing; Shockeroos; United; AC Tuary, Persian Gulf and the like.
For Football United, Mohammad will be controlling play from the back. He’s got a grace about his strategic play that, most of the time, keeps the team structured. James and Mubasher will be darting about up front, and causing havoc for the other team’s defence in the process. The ball skills of the two strikers are first class, to say the least. Sasco and Lual tend to hover around the fringes looking for any opportunity to rifle a shot into the net. Ajak is the go to man for switching up play, and for some deft touches. John has a quiet but strong presence in the net. They are all settling into their first Futsal NSW season nicely.
Settling in is what all these young men do, every day.
From Sierra Leone and Sudan the young men have been in Australia for a couple of years, and love their new home.
They bring a wealth of innovative football play and skill learnt on the street to this Futsal competition. Their background has taught them versatility and resilience. Each game against them has to be hard fought. Their enthusiasm equals high-intensity play, every time.
The young men also bring a wealth of experience to Australia more generally too. They are multi-lingual, hard-working, community leaders, and respected mentors.
Football United recognised their abilities and now supports them.
Football United is a program that uses a football development program as a mechanism for promoting well being, and fostering social inclusion in Australian society. Football United’s vision is to foster social equity, inclusion and respect for cultural, ethnic and religious differences. The program uses people’s love for Football (soccer) to also build opportunities for empowerment and life-skills. Participants are from families that have survived and overcome war and trauma in places like Burundi, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Futsal NSW and the other teams have welcomed the Football United team into the competition with helpful support. The competition is perfect for the young men to showcase their skills, and also their ability to settle well into Australia. Their community, families, and the younger generation watch them and will follow.
Mind you, it hasn’t been an easy road to chase their football and life dreams.
More than 13,000 humanitarian refugees are welcomed to Australia annually. Refugee families are highly vulnerable to social isolation in their countries of resettlement. The difficulties of refugee settlement are well documented including new languages, differing cultural and societal values, emotional trauma, loss or separation from family and life-threatening events preceding arrival. Settlement issues, together with the ‘normal’ challenges every young person experiences when growing up, could affect the young men’s capacity to trust and form relationships with family, teachers, referees, peers and the broader community. But these young men overcome this with the same enthusiasm they have for playing football.
In the refugee camps there are no certainty, little safety, and no security, but these young men kept playing football. It’s where the young men developed their passion, and football helped them dream and kept them optimistic. They soaked football into their skin, and are now footballers to their core.
Being part of the Football NSW competition helps these young men to enjoy settling into Australia, to feel happy, to make friends and gives them opportunities they might not get otherwise.
But be warned, this team is the tip of the iceberg. The next generation is even more resilient and skilled at football. They are pacing the floor waiting for their shot.
The resilience, optimism and skills new Australians bring to this country is a gift to Australian football. Lets foster it. The Australian Futsal community, and society more broadly, will be a premier league example if we do.
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