And how skill in manipulating this ball around a court and into the back of the net can incite such strong emotions.

We’re approaching the Homeless World Cup final and I still can’t get my head around it all. What I can are some of the extraordinary moments I’ve witnessed this week.

The Australian men’s team finished in the top half of the table and will play today to cement 21st position, their highest Homeless World Cup ranking since the 2005 Homeless World Cup.

The Malawi team, waylaid by the Bangkok airport protests, arrived four days late and yet spoke not of their ordeal but how stoked they were to be here.

The excited Cambodian team, comprising of so-tiny-they-can’t-possibly-be-over-sixteen street orphans, clasped both their hands around my one hand to thank me for reporting on their match.

About halfway through the competition, the Czech Republic team entered women’s names such as Layla, Monica, and Daisy the Horrible as their ‘preferred names’ on the game sheets, providing a fair amount of amusement as the commentators grappled with them.

German work horse Artur Walencik was so gracious in semi final defeat that he ran a lap of the pitch with the Irish flag and then bear-hugged and single-handedly lifted two of the Irish players off the ground in celebration of their victory.

And New Zealand showed an incredible amount of sportsmanship in their final secondary stage match against the USA. New Zealand were out of quarter-final contention, but the USA, placed third in their group, needed a win in this last match of the day to progress.

The USA started strongly, piling on five goals in the first half. New Zealand made it six for them after a misjudged backpass became an own goal. The Kiwis got on the board early in the second half and then the USA tapped in an own goal themselves. They lost confidence and New Zealand slotted in another five goals to stage one of the biggest comebacks I’ve ever seen.

There aren’t any draws under Homeless World Cup rules, so with six goals apiece the match went to a sudden-death penalty shootout in front of a screaming Fed Square stadium.

The USA won the toss and put their ball firmly in the back of the net. And then, in a gesture of goodwill to help the USA go forward, the New Zealand player tapped his shot directly towards the USA keeper so he could save it.

I was so overcome with emotion that I quite literally had to go to the bathroom to compose myself.

Here-against-the-odds Afghanistan is the only unbeaten team in the men's Homeless World Cup and overcame Ghana 3-2 in a heart-stopping semi final penalty shoot-out today to secure their grand final berth.

They’re meeting the extraordinarily good Russians who actually boast their own 007 and who cut short reigning champions Scotland’s campaign to defend the title today.

It would be a fairytale ending and great PR for the Homeless World Cup should the winning team come from a war-torn country whose name traditionally conjures up such images as terrorists, the Taliban, and suicide bombings.

And I’d like to see more of their band of merry supporters led by a flag-as-cape-wearing guy with the strangest, most styled, and most compelling mullet I’ve ever seen.

But as an underdog-supporting Australian, I can’t help but also hope that the less outwardly emotional Russian outfit, which wasn’t fancied early, which has so quietly progressed through the tournament, and which doesn’t have quite so many fans vocally barracking for them, gets up.

Either way, I’ll still be impressed, humbled, and God-I’m-a-girl emotional at the difference kicking a simple, round ball can make.

[UPDATE: Afghanistan defeated Russia 5-4 in a thriller.]

For full match information, check out the Homeless World Cup website.


When Fiona isn’t getting emotional about football, she’s writing about it on her website.