Playing soccer in Australia: fun for some, hope for others

Saturday, 2 of Jul 2016
By Pedro Carrion

Most Latin men are used to play soccer in their countries and can`t stay much time without practising the sport while living in Australia. It is not rare to see South Americans and Europeans playing around in the parks of the city during the evening and some of them can even dream of playing in semi-pro leagues, which may help them to pay their bills with payments per game.

More than any other sport, soccer is really popular between international students in Australia. Despite most of them come with the idea of prioritising studies and work, they also want to spend their time of leisure in the fields. But why running with a ball is being so important to them? The 26-years-old Brazilian, Renato Canineo, says that it is an easy thing to explain:

“It is much more than the game. It is about the funny moments that we spend with friends and it is also a matter of knowing people from different countries and making new friendships because of the sport. Basically, it is a good way of getting in contact with other cultures”, he says.

Playing just in an amateur level, Renato organizes weekly games in Victoria Park. According to him, it was all about playing with the school friends, but now the Whatsapp group has 88 people and is organized twice a week.

“We already played with people from all parts of the world. You can see Asians, Europeans and many other nationalities besides Brazilians. Even my English teacher already came to play with us”, says him proudly.

Currently playing in another level, Lucas Chaim is part of the South Brisbane Futsal Team, which plays the National League of Futsal against teams of other states, such as Sidney and Melbourne. Despite the team is mostly compound by Australians, Lucas made a test and showed the coach an outstanding capacity to join the team.

In Brisbane for less than two months, he entered in the squad a couple of weeks ago, and is now playing as a federated player:

“When I was younger I played for a couple of years in bases categories in Brazil. I had already given up of football as a profession, but then this opportunity of playing here appeared. For sure I wasn`t expecting to play in Australia, but I`m really thankful that now I am doing again what I love most”.