Home Game

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Hold Your Breath Time

Q: Will all the teams arrive on time?

A: It's taken us ten years to get here.

FRIDAY, 5 OCTOBER 2012: I hold my breath. Just one more day. The tenth Homeless World Cup will kick off tomorrow in Mexico City, and everything's ready for action - including three new stadiums for thousands of spectators which appeared overnight in the heart of the main city square.

The transformation of the plaza is almost complete. But this is not the first time that the Zocalo has seen dramatic change - it used to be the centre of the universe until it was destroyed by the Conquistadores. And now it is the venue for the Homeless World Cup.

The location may be different (last year it was Paris and the year before Rio) but every year I hold my breath right till the very last minute. Something unexpected always happens, but there's nothing more I can do now except think about how far we've come since the tournament started in 2003, and how much more we'll need to do to reach our goal - a world where homelessness has been eradicated altogether and the Homeless World Cup no longer needs to exist.

Every year is also very different. Every tournament takes on a life of its own and has a momentum of its own.

The scale of the event is also growing all the time, not just in terms of numbers but its international impact. Street-soccer teams from more than 50 countries are converging on the Zocalo - our home for the rest of the week. The 500 players selected to play for their countries will represent thousands of others who also played in tournaments during the year - about a million people since the organisation was founded just over a decade ago. And everyone who makes it here tomorrow will be part of a sporting event that will not only transform the lives of the players but also change the way that homeless people are perceived.

Some players will be nervous as they sit looking down on the world tens of thousands of feet in the air, wondering what Mexico City will be like and hoping they will go back at the end of the week with the trophy. Most of them have never even flown before or owned a passport. Some have never even had identity papers. Most of them have never spent the night in a hotel before, and some of them have never even slept in a bed with a mattress, a pillow and sheets. But all of them are gearing up to represent their country and heading for the most important week of their lives. In 24 hours, these homeless men and women - once excluded and invisible - will be treated like heroes by thousands of fans crowding into the square.

Lisa Wrightsman will be flying here tonight from California with the rest of her team. Lisa is a coach now but she also knows exactly what it's like to be a player, and was part of the first women's USA team two years ago in Rio de Janeiro, when the games were played on Copacabana. She was one of the stars of the tournament then, and returned a year later as one of the coaches in Paris. Lisa also knows exactly what it's like to be homeless, struggling to get free from drugs. Today she is running a programme for excluded women in Sacramento, using soccer to help them to transform their lives, just as she has also turned her own life around. She loves the game of soccer and has always dreamed of playing for her country. She is also in love with the Homeless World Cup and excited to see what will happen this year.

Coming in the opposite direction, 25-year-old Lukes Mjoka hopes that this week in Mexico City will be another stepping stone in his eventful life. Like Lisa, he made his début in Rio, playing for South Africa. And like Lisa, he's also a coach now. His dream is to go back to Rio, where Pupo the manager of the Brazil team has offered him work as a coach. It's a long way from the township in Cape Town when Lukes was a six-year-old boy being squeezed in through broken car windows to steal whatever he could get his six-year-old hands on. It's also a long way from running his neighbourhood drug-dealing 'business'. Now part of the coaching staff helping South Africa manager Cliffy (Clifford Martinus), Lukes will have to persuade him and Pupo that he is now ready to take on the challenge of moving across the Atlantic to Rio.

Arkady Tyurin used to be homeless, like Lukes. He is flying in from Russia, thinking this year will probably be his farewell to the Homeless World Cup. He has been involved since 2003 when the tournament started, so this is the tenth year he's managed the team. Maybe it is time for someone else to take over. Was the highlight when Russia won the trophy in Cape Town in 2006? Perhaps. But the challenge continued. In Melbourne in 2008, the team reached the final again, this time losing 5-4 to Afghanistan. This year, it's another group of players, with their individual battles and their individual hopes and desires.

'Will I see you next year in Poland?' I ask. And the look in his eyes says that Arkady is already starting to have second thoughts.

Melbourne was the first year Hary Milas got involved with the Homeless World Cup. Like most Australians, he loves sport and also loves the underdog, and as a referee he gets the opportunity not only to make sure the players respect all the rules of the game but also make new friends and meet up with dozens of old friends. He's also confident that nobody will hate his decisions so much that they stab him - something which happened a few years ago in Australia, long before he started refereeing at the Homeless World Cup. For Hary, the annual event is about a lot more than just soccer. It's all about people transforming their lives - not just the homeless players but Hary himself and all the other people who volunteer year after year.

Like Hary Milas, Alex Chan from Hong Kong is not one of the excluded, but his life has also been deeply affected by getting involved in the Homeless World Cup. Because Hong Kong is now part of China, there are no 'homeless' people in the eyes of the authorities, but Alex knows there are excluded people in the city, including many heroin addicts, and he has done something about it - his company sponsors the team. It's a long way from Hong Kong to Mexico City, but Alex hopes that one day Hong Kong will also play host to the Homeless World Cup.

Harald Schmied knows a lot better than most what the Homeless World Cup is about. He's not involved in day-to-day activities now and this year he is covering the tournament for Austrian TV, but Harald was one of the founders of the organisation and is proud of the progress made over the years since his home town Graz in Austria played host to the inaugural event in 2003. It's grown from 18 teams to well over 60 teams this year, and partners in 70 countries. Every year is different but the 'crazy idea' still has the same impact on Harald and everyone else.

Also flying to Mexico City tonight are human rights campaigner Boby Duval from Haiti, Bongsu Hasibuan from Indonesia, Becca Mushrow (one of the youngest players in the tournament), Mauva Hunte-Bowlby (one of the oldest) and Aaron Ranieri (returning for the first time to the land where he was born) from England; Bill and Debbi Shaw from Michigan who are coming to support their adopted homeland, the Philippines; another 'exile' who has fallen in love with the people of Asia, Paraic Grogan, an Irishman now based in Australia, sitting near two of his star players, Chan 'Ton' Sophondara and midfielder Phiyou Sin from Cambodia; Ireland coach Mick Pender, who has been to every tournament since Graz in 2003, and hopes that his credit card will not be called into service this year; and us-based volunteer Chandrima Chatterjee, who confesses she's fallen in love with the Homeless World Cup.

Boby is an activist who spent 17 months in prison in the mid-1970s as a 'guest' of Baby Doc Duvalier, the country's much-hated dictator. Amnesty International and us President Jimmy Carter secured his release in 1977 and, 18 years later, Boby created Fondation L'Athletique D'Haiti, an organisation which provides soccer training, free school and free meals for thousands of children and 'at-risk youths', and is now a partner of the Homeless World Cup. In 2007, Boby was named CNN Hero of the Year for his work, but this year he is just pleased that his players have made it to Mexico City - Haiti has been battered by disasters in the previous couple of years and it wasn't until the last minute that they managed to raise enough money to fly here. Two years ago, thousands of people made homeless by the devastating earthquake set up camp on the soccer field used by L'Athletique D'Haiti. Now Boby has a dream to build a brand-new stadium in Haiti which will rise like a phoenix from the rubble of Cité Soleil.

There are three million homeless people in Indonesia, and Bongsu was one of them for over 15 years until he started playing soccer with Rumah Cemara, the Homeless World Cup's Indonesian partner, an organisation which helps people living with HIV/AIDS and people who are trying to stop taking drugs - intravenous drug use is the major cause of the killer disease in his country. Bongsu doesn't know it yet but later this week the team will be wearing black armbands and he will dedicate his 'goal of the tournament', a superb overhead bicycle kick, in memory of a friend and former team mate who is about to lose his fight for life. Bongsu also doesn't know that next year he will coach the team - and one...