One Step Away: Representing Philly at the Homeless World Cup

By Ethan Cohen

One Step Away

For an athlete who has represented his country on the international stage, Ellish Danzy started his soccer career in an unexpected way. "In basketball, baseball and football, you use your hands all the time, so I wanted to know what it was like to use your feet," Danzy explains with a chuckle, "So one day I went and bought the FIFA [soccer video game] for Xbox."

A lot has happened to Danzy in the two years since that fateful video game purchase.

For one, his house, on North 28th Street, burned down. After the fire, Danzy was provided temporary sleeping arrangements at Faith Tabernacle Baptist Church, the local church where he attended.  He was given keys to let himself in and out in exchange for helping with cleaning.

Danzy then moved out of the church and into the shelter system, and at Our Brother's Place, an overnight men's shelter, he was reintroduced to soccer.

It was there that he met Chandrima Chatterjee, the director of Street Soccer Philly, who was at the shelter recruiting players.

"A team from heaven"

Street Soccer Philly is the Philadelphia branch of Street Soccer USA, an organization whose mission is to raise awareness of poverty issues in America and, as stated on their website, "to improve health, education, and employment outcomes for the most disadvantaged Americans by using sports to transfer the skills necessary so that they can achieve those outcomes for themselves."

Danzy glowingly describes Street Soccer Philly. "There's something about my team, it's like a team from heaven," he says.

Since his first practice, Danzy has had perfect attendance at Street Soccer Philly's weekly games and practices. That is a large part of why he was selected to compete in the October 2014 Homeless World Cup in Santiago, Chile, as a member of the Street Soccer USA team.

The Homeless World Cup is an annual tournament held by a network of 70 grassroots soccer organizations across the globe. The goal of the tournament is to spread awareness of global poverty issues, highlight the positive power of soccer being harnessed by these organizations, and reward outstanding players with the opportunity to play for their country.

According to the Street Soccer USA website, selection to the national team is based off of "achievements on the field, ability on the field, and leadership." As Danzy tells me, he was selected mostly for the third criteria. Not only does he have a perfect attendance record, but he also is an effective recruiter for Street Soccer Philly and can be depended on to keep things cool and collected on the field. Remaining well-tempered is crucial in keeping a team focused throughout a game, especially since Danzy is a goalkeeper, therefore in charge of directing his teammates during play.

Keeping composure is especially difficult in as hectic a game as street soccer.

A whole different type of soccer

Unlike a traditional soccer field, which can be as long as 120 yards and as wide as 80 yards, street soccer courts are between 27 and 45 yards long and between 16 and 27 yards wide.  On top of that, street courts are walled in and the ball can be ricocheted off of boundary walls. Play only stops if the ball is kicked high enough to go over the walls and leave the court. Creating even more chaos, the floor surface of a street soccer court is generally a much harder material than the grass of a traditional soccer field, so the ball bounces all around.

"It is like two different abilities that you are supposed to learn for full soccer and street soccer." Danzy explains. "Street soccer is a lot faster."

Street soccer courts are more commonly found in South America and Europe than they are in the United States, especially on the East Coast. So at the Homeless World Cup, the United States is at an immediate disadvantage, competing against teams that have played on street courts their whole lives.

When asked about the different playing styles of different countries, Danzy stresses the speed of some of the teams he faced in Santiago. "Holland was very fast," he recalls, "and Chile."

At the Homeless World Cup

At the Homeless World Cup, not only were Danzy and his teammates playing against fast-paced, highly talented teams, but they were also playing in front of the largest crowds of their lives. The tournament draws a total of 100,000 live spectators in addition to millions of online viewers.

Danzy describes his feeling first playing in front of a large crowd as "a little nervous," but he adds, "it was exciting too."

Over the course of eight days, the Street Soccer USA men's team played eleven games in addition to daily practices. Ultimately they came away with four wins and a bronze medal in the Football Calle Cup, the consolation tournament played by the fifth-tier group.

The competition, though, was only part of Danzy's experience in Santiago.

It was his first time outside of the country and he was traveling with a team that included no other players or coaches from Philadelphia. His coaches were from Chicago, Minneapolis, New York, Sacramento and Los Angeles, and his fourteen teammates were from all across the country. Only one member of the team, Coach Chris, spoke Spanish, the native language of Santiago.

They bunked in the same hostel as teams from Argentina, Canada, Ghana, Holland, Kenya and Mexico. Although the teams faced a language barrier when communicating with each other, they would link up to play pickup games or practice together.

"We got together and drilled and played a little kickball and stuff," Danzy remembers. Most of the time, conversation would just be about soccer, but Danzy was also able to learn a little bit about the backgrounds of players from other countries. "A lot of guys were saying that they came from the slums, that they played 'slum soccer' and stuff like that." Danzy says. "It's like the 'ghetto' parts of where they're from."

Aside from soccer, Danzy and his teammates did a little bit of shopping and ate at local restaurants.  Going out for food, Danzy found some traces of the United States. "They have McDonald's there, they had a KFC there," says Danzy. He found pizza too, but discovered that it needs a little work. "Their pizza is a lot different," he states as diplomatically as possible. "It's hard to explain, but it tasted a lot different. It's like they need more teaching on making pizza."

Back in Philly

Nowadays, back in Philadelphia, Danzy still keeps in touch with his Street Soccer USA teammates through social media.  "On Facebook, you know they post stuff, 'happy birthday' here and there," he says, noting that his USA coaches keep in touch too. "They'll post something on Facebook just to see how we're doing."

Danzy now wants to focus even more on recruiting players for Street Soccer Philly. That was already a role he played on the team, and he is described by Chatterjee as a "natural recruiter and leader," but he would now like to do even more to spread the word about Street Soccer Philly.

"It's nice, you know, introducing people to our team. Usually I meet people and they're like, 'yeah, I got a friend' or 'my husband used to play soccer' and stuff like that," Danzy explains. "So I'll give the address to where we practice and my coach's phone number and if anybody would like to play, just call us or come to our Wednesday 6:30 practice at Penn Park."

If you go, you'll surely find him there, and during the rest of the week, when he's not recruiting, he'll be thinking about his team and his teammates. "They're always on my mind," says Danzy, "They make me feel a lot better, make my day feel better."