Dialect 2 News
The homeless Euro Hamburg 2024
The Homeless Euro 24 Championship was held in Hamburg, Germany, as an official side event of the official European Football Championship where Hungary was represented by the Oltalom Sports Association from june 16-22.
We started preparing and selecting the team months before the tournament, but ironically we found out on the penultimate day that our refugee goalkeeper from Afghanistan did not receive back his travel document from the immigration office which he gave them months before to renew it, so he could not join us, so we had to replace him with a younger player, with a kid from a children”s home, and get the allowance papers signed immediately by his guardian.
Of course, the day of the trip was not without excitement, as the player chosen to replace our player who had dropped out fell asleep, and it was only through the ingenuity of our coach that he too was able to get on the road.
Just like in the training sessions, the traveling team was made up of several nationalities: 5 Hungarians, one from Nigeria, one from Libya and one from Cameroon.
A great extra positive aspect of the trip was that in Hamburg we could reunite with two of our ex players now living in Germany. A refugee from Afghanistan who currently is living one hour from Hamburg, but in 2023 he was the one who came to the most training in the whole Oltalom team, he came to support us. Also another refugee from Albania, who had to leave Hungary many years before, came all the way from Dusseldorf and lived in our hotel and was helping the team throughout the whole week.
We reached the semi-finals of the tournament in good spirits, finishing top of our group, where a 5-2 win over Romania meant we reached the final. By the final, our players were already tired, so the trophy was lifted by a Lithuanian team consisting of more experienced players.
We were not the best team at the end of the tournament, but Emmanuel was the best player, who was praised for his football skills and for his particularly fair behavior.
