Philly's World Cup shines a spotlight on a new city

It's one of those wouldn't-it-be-cool type of ideas that usually comes around the third beer.

A Philly World Cup soccer tournament. Just like the real World Cup, with 32 teams and squads from across the city representing different countries. Citywide elimination games, and a championship game and festival at Citizens Bank Park.

A way to bring neighborhoods together. To make the city feel a little smaller, a little tighter.

It could become a tradition - with bragging rights all year.

Unlike so many wouldn't-it-be-cool ideas, this one still sounded good the next morning. So it was with much fun and fanfare Friday that Mayor Kenney formally announced the International Unity Cup of Philadelphia.

He said he came up with the idea while watching the 2014 World Cup (in fairness, he didn't mention anything about beer).

Parks and Recreation Commissioner Kathryn Ott Lovell laid out the details: Men and women 18 and older can play. Teams can have 25 players. Games begin in September and conclude with the Nov. 5 championship game. It will be the first soccer game ever played at Citizens Bank.

Friday, nets were set up on City Hall's north curtain. Local players proudly posed in front of their team flags. Mexico. Lithuania. Indonesia. Senegal. Japan. And even Bhutan (population 741,919).

"Ole, ole, ole," the mayor chanted along with Team Ireland before shooting a goal.

("How can you block the mayor?" explained Germany's goalkeeper, Thorne Holder.)

As fun as the festivities were - and as awesome as the tournament sounds - a soccer tournament is not a cure-all, of course. Real change in our city depends not on the outcome of a soccer match but on whether the mayor can deliver on his promises and plans to build up neglected neighborhoods.

But one thing we've learned as we've glossed up Center City the last few years is the power of perception. How simple things like beer gardens and bike lanes can help fuel progress. How civic pride breeds energy and excitement - and change.

The soccer tournament shifts the cameras to those most responsible for bringing life to New Philadelphia - our evermore vibrant and burgeoning immigrant communities - and asks them to step into the spotlight.

"It's not hiding in the shadows but coming out to play in one of our premier sports complexes," Kenney said after the news conference, still humming soccer songs and hanging up a scarf given to him by Team Cambodia. "It's integrating ethnic communities into the fabric of the city. It's really kind of cool stuff."

Ask the players where they learned to play the game they love and they offer memories from across the globe. Ask where they play soccer now and they offer a tour of Philadelphia.

When he was a child in Haiti, Osse Vilsaint and his friends fashioned soccer balls out of strips of sponge and a balloon and played until the sun dipped on their rock-covered field. Now, when not working at his private security business, Vilsaint, 24, plays in the scrimmages at the Ziehler Playground in Olney, intense matches between Haitians from throughout the city played on a field outlined with tires and dotted with yellow wildflowers.

"It's a battle," Vilsaint said.

Nate Szwerdszarf could not conceal his excitement when remembering a match he played as a teenager in his hometown stadium in the mountainous city of La Paz: the gleaming Estadio Hernando Siles, the Yankee Stadium of Bolivian soccer.

Nor could the 29-year-old creative director who now lives in Fishtown with his wife mask his joy when recalling the scrimmages he played at Temple with classmates from around the world?

"Mini-World Cups," he called them.

Growing up in Poland, Eryk Tylek rooted on his beloved Cracovia while despising its hated rival, Wisla. Now, he plays pickup with his buddies from the Polish Eagle Sport Club in Port Richmond.

"You play at Monkiewicz," his 6-year-old daughter, Sophia, said, knowing the name of the playground a few blocks from home where her father plays on summer nights.

If Poland plays well this fall, Sophia will know her father and his friends sometimes play at Citizens Bank Park, too.

mnewall@phillynews.com

215-854-2759

The deadline to enter a team is May 16. For more info go to www.phila.gov/unitycup.