LEVELLING the PLAYING FIELD
How camaraderie and a love of soccer carried Canada’s team from the streets to the Homeless World Cup
On a Monday in August, a particular soccer team met for its weekly practice behind a Hamilton high school. Like all soccer enthusiasts, they laughed and shouted, oohed and aahed, when the ball found the back of the portable nets.
Their coach, Phil Ruicci, however, had seen many of these players off the field — at meal times in homeless shelters. There, he said, “everyone’s keeping to themselves, isolated.”
“And then you see them here — look,” he said, pointing to forward Dao Phan, who was charging toward the goal with the ball. “Here, no one’s ever quiet.”
The street soccer team prepared for weeks for the 13th Homeless World Cup, which this year runs in Amsterdam from Sept. 12-19. The international, four-a-side soccer tournament is reserved for players, male and female, who are homeless or were recently living on the street and have checked into a drug or alcohol rehab program. This year Canada’s squad took another stab at the championship, with seven players from across the country.
Since the first Homeless World Cup tournament was held in Graz, Austria, in 2003, the Canadians have never finished higher than the mid-30s among 60-odd teams. On Monday, they went on to crash out of the tournament, losing all five of their matches in Amsterdam.
But even though winning does matter to the team, goals off the pitch are even more important — like supporting comrades who’ve been through similar hardships.
Before they set off for Amsterdam, Pearson airport was a scene of highfiving and backslapping as the players greeted one another, many for the first time.
Amid the camaraderie, however, Ruicci had a small crisis on his hands. Harold Smoke, a 43-year-old player from Kelowna, went missing at the arrivals gate.
He was found after a frantic, hourlong search, just in time for everyone to grab sandwiches before their international flight.
In an interview before check-in, Smoke said he, like many of his teammates, had a difficult upbringing.
“I left home at 13 because of abuse and all that crap,” he said. “I thought I might do better on my own, so that’s what I did.”
He was homeless on and off for decades, including a three-month stint on the streets of Winnipeg.
He hit the bottle and also became addicted to crystal meth and hallucinogenics.
Two years ago an employee of a homeless shelter in Kelowna invited him to join the local street soccer program. Smoke said he “hacked a couple of lungs out” at his first practice but that didn’t deter him — he had found a new life in playing.
“If it wasn’t for soccer, I’d be right back where I was,” he said. “I didn’t even think I had that kind of passion in me anymore.”
Smoke said he has kicked his drug habit and now lives in subsidized housing.
Team spirit is what helps many of the players get back on their feet, said Paul Gregory, the founder of Street Soccer Canada.
“You’re getting support from people who aren’t just case-managing you,” he said.
Aformer social housing advocate in Peel Region, Gregory started the local street soccer organization in 2004 with a van and a ball. There are now shelters participating in a dozen cities, including Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver.
Street soccer gets most of its money from government and charities, such as the Salvation Army.
Its 2014 budget was $155,000, according to the Canada Revenue Agency. This year, the team raised more than $6,000 with an IndieGoGo campaign.
“We’re better than our men’s national team,” Gregory joked at the airport.
(The Canadian men’s national team has qualified only once for the FIFA World Cup, in 1986.)
But in the world that these players inhabit, trophies aren’t the only measure of success. Take the sacrifice made this year by one player in his 20s, who didn’t want his name published.
He qualified for the trip to Amsterdam but he turned down the chance because he didn’t want to miss his first week at college.
“It gives me goose bumps just thinking about it,” said Ruicci, the coach.
“A lot of guys would never turn down that opportunity. For him to make those kinds of decisions speaks volumes to who he is and who he’ll be.”