Page 8
Culture
Street Roots • July 20-26, 2018
8
More
than just
a game
Culture
Street Roots • July 20-26, 2018
Page 9
Below, street soccer teams from
Portland, Vancouver an d
Seattle m et at an indoor arena
to play lightn ing rounds o f
soccer in late M arch. A t left,
two players grab some tim e to
talk.
The World C up is one fo r the
record books, but a different
kin d o f soccer tournam ent
continues to score big fo r the
men and women who battle
poverty and homelessness to
take the pitch
P H O T O S C O U R T E S Y O F R EA L
C H A N G E NEW S
BY ASHLEY ARCHIBALD
park, visit the Fremont Troll and, of course, play a
bit of soccer.
But first they had to get to know one another.
nder the soft sun of a Seattle spring day, a
Players were instructed to find a partner and take
group of roughly two dozen people kicked
three
minutes to get to know them before reporting
soccer balls about on a sufficiently level
back to the group on their name, where they came
stretch of grass in Gasworks Park, squarely between
from, a fun fact and where in the world they would
the skeleton of the Seattle Gas Light Company
like to travel.
gasification plant and a hill where a couple in
Quickly the players split into pairs, eliciting a
brightly colored flowing pants took turns stretching
quiet hum of discussion before once again forming a
their arms outward, completing a sundial with their
circle on the grass to introduce their newfound
bodies.
partners.
At 10 a.m. on a Saturday when brunch-scene
Omar was from Ethiopia and spoke five
Seattleites are gearing up to stake out patio spots,
languages. He wanted to go to Amsterdam. Sergei,
the park is already alive with the unusual: A trio in
born in Russia, dreamed of taking his street soccer
striking blue coattails and fanciful dresses held a
skills pro and going to Iceland. Sebastian, of France,
photo shoot ahead of Sakura-Con, the annual
wore the jersey of French soccer star Zinedine
cosplay prom, and a stilt-walking class used the tall
Zidane. Sebastian and his son had met Zidane once.
concrete arches to steady themselves as they listed
The diversity and intemationality of the teams
forward.
reflect
the near universal appeal of the sport that
Nearby a group large enough to form two
they play. Soccer is beloved by an estimated 4 billion
standard teams playing the most popular sport in
people the world over. The second most popular
the world gathered for a pickup game, taking
sport, cricket, falls short by 1.5 billion.
advantage of a rare day of sunshine in a city known
The dominance of the sport is such that when the
for rain.
Economist newspaper ran the figures in a 2011
Some wore shirts that read: “Home has 32
article, it barely bothered discussing soccer at all.
panels.” A participant shouted the group’s slogan:
“Which sport is the world’s favourite? The
“If you’re playing, you’re winning.”
answer,
football, feels so self-evident that it is barely
The group formed the Cascadia wing of street
soccer, an institution that brings homeless, formerly worth a p o st But what about the world’s second
favourite?” the author wrote.
homeless and marginalized people together for
That’s at least in part because of the ease of play.
companionship and competition in the self-styled
I f s often said that to play soccer, all you need is a
“most beautiful sp o rt”
ball. Marking off the goals and other boundaries is
The scene at Gasworks Park was the opening act
as easy as agreeing on a few landmarks, and the
in a weekend of activity, with players from hosting
basic
rules of the game, if not strategy, can be
team Street Soccer Seattle, Street Soccer Portland
picked up quite quickly.
and Maple Pool United, a group out of Vancouver
Except for offsides. That rule requires diagrams.
Island. From there they would grab bahn mi in the
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
U
In the United States, where the professional side
of the domestic game has only gone mainstream in
the past decade or so, children’s soccer has still
long been the Saturday activity complete with
orange-slice smiles and participation trophies.
Soccer is a sort of physical lingua franca.
So is charades, a fact that program director Chris
Burfeind and Stevens used to their full advantage.
Splitting the players into three groups, the coaches
assigned them tasks to perform without words to
the delight of the group. One team stood in a circle,
hands outstretched at an inward angle toward the
sky, as another shot soccer balls through the gap
between their steepled arms - “Volcano!” - while
another spread out, each player running up and
handing an invisible object to the person in front of
them — “Relay!”
The stumper turned out to be “used car lo t”
With introductions made and ice broken, players
grabbed bahn mi sandwiches and chips and ate
lunch looking out over Lake Union.
Joanie Mathias and Courtney, of Vancouver
Island, took in the view and the sun. They and their
teammates arrived in Seattle the day before by
ferry. They’d been traveling for almost 10 hours
before they landed at a hostel in Belltown and
crashed for the night
Maple Pool United is named for a remote trailer
park that caters to homeless and low-income people
but was under threat from a nearby city that tried to
evict the residents over zoning and flooding
concerns. It took six years of prolonged effort to
save Maple Pool Campground, and in 2015 the
residents won the right to stay.
Now the campground serves as the practice area
for Maple Pool United, and the players find it
through a local homeless services agency, Dawn to
Dawn, that participated in the fight to preserve the
off toward the goal, passing the ball between them
before taking the sh o t
facility.
Mathias has played with the team for nearly
It was here that the differences between the
seven years and won a spot to play at the Homeless
teams became more apparent.
World Cup in the historic Zocalo Square in Mexico
Maple Pool coach Grant Shilling said that some of
City when Canada still fielded a team for the event.
his players struggle with cognitive issues that could
impede them from playing at the level of Seattle,
She was one of two women at the Saturday
which holds practices and games every week, and
gathering and said that street soccer, like so many
Portland, which has invested in
other things, was largely a
the team through professional
men’s sp o rt
paid staff.
“Girls have to try harder
“The sense of levels are
to prove themselves,”
different,” Shilling said. “I’m
Mathias said.
That's part of the beanty of the
worried my guys will get
She loves the sport —
project: giving the players not discouraged.”
even if she is “more of a
The players from the urban
baseball person” — and the jnst the space to enjoy them
selves, but to test ont social
teams, Seattle and Portland, were
role that street soccer
plays in bringing strangers skills that they'll need to move visibly dominant in their control
of the ball and the accuracy and
together and providing
on into the world when their
people who have been
name finally reaches the top of power of the shots on goal.
Maple Pool United had fewer
beaten down a sense of
the honsing waiting list or the standout players, although all
community and self-worth.
equally game. The mood was
It’s also an important tool break they need finally comes
through.
positive — there were no wrong
for education, Mathias
moves, only encouraging words
said.
and camaraderie.
“It brings awareness
When play began, it was
about homelessness to all
arranged in round-robin fashion
the world,” she said.
to accommodate the odd number
After lunch, the group
of teams.
piled into two vans, heading for an indoor soccer
Maple Pool United, in powder blue jerseys, faced
arena after a quick stop to scale the Fremont Troll.
off against Portland in the first round. The play was
The players warmed up, lunging crosswise across
fast - each half of the game lasted six minutes with
the fake turf before returning in an exaggerated jog,
a minute break between the halves, and teams were
their knees making 90-degree angles in the air
allowed only one substitute.
before them. The coaches then broke them into
There was more pressure on the Canadian team,
three lines by their city of origin to run “triangles,”
which ultimately fell 4-0 before Seattle cycled in to
a coordinated exercise in which three people took
take on their southern neighbors.
The Seattle and Portland teams meet up often
enough to have a bit of a rivalry; Portland has taken
home the Street Soccer Cascadia Cup the past two
years. This game was more aggressive than the bout
against the Canadian team, and at one point a
Portland player snapped, pushing a Seattle player.
Adam Lewis, the Portland coach, called him off
the field. The player explained that he’d been kicked
first, leading him to lash o u t No one else saw the
offense, Lewis said.
“When you push him, you lose control of the
situation,” Lewis told him, giving him space to cool
off.
Team sports are a social testing ground, full of
opportunities to excel, to fail, to offend and to react
Street soccer is no different, but it is filled with
people already pushed to their limits by social and
economic circumstances over which they have little
control. It’s not always easy to take the space and
move on after a flare up, as the coaches
acknowledged to their players after the matches
finished.
That’s part of the beauty of the project giving
the players not just the space to enjoy themselves,
but to test out social skills that they’ll need to move
on into the world when their name finally reaches
the top of the housing waiting list or the break they
need finally comes through. It’s reinforced in
practices, where volunteer mentors provide support
to help the players through harsh circumstances in
other areas of their lives.
The beautiful sport provides a beautiful
metaphor: Players are making goals, on and off the
field.
Courtesy o f R ea l C han ge / IN S P .ng o