Last week, we did live the amazing experience of hosting football players of 17 different nationalities.
No, it was not a special assignment from FIFA, even though we have heard that they are thinking about us to do something big in Portugal, and it was not yet the mega tournament that we are looking forward to organizing.
In fact, it was only one team, with players from 17 different countries that now have only one nationality. The team was Switzerland´s FC Unterstrass. The squad is made of players with double nationality from Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Italy, France, Israel, India, Sri Lanka, Syria, Austria, Senegal, Cameroon, Spain, Nigeria, Brazil, and China. A true football United Nations.
During the training camp, we took the team to a legendary Lisbon football pitch, Estádio da Tapadinha (Tapadinha Stadium), where they played with the Portuguese Atlético FC. FC Unterstrass won 2- 1, with their most respected player, the legendary 32-year-old wing Senthuran Paramananthan, originally from Sri Lanka, scoring the first goal, and their star, the forward Shaady Hasan, playing at a proficient level. For us, it was amazing to watch how people from 17 nationalities can speak the same language: football.
