Watch 'A Beautiful Game,' a story of resilience, recovery and the power of soccer
FOX Sports Live brings you the incredible story of A Beautiful Game, a story of resilience, recovery, and hope in a seemingly hopeless place. Watch it above.
****
On June 11, 2015, in a Middle Eastern desert eight miles from the most dangerous place in the world, a simple 20-minute game became a great equalizer.
The game wasn’t played in a sprawling field. Orange peels and juice boxes weren’t handed out at halftime. Instead, it took place on a gravel pit built the day before in the middle of the Jordanian desert.
After earning the right to play in the championship game, running through their opposition and going undefeated in the tournament the day before, Rama Khalid Jbawi’s moment was here.
This was would be the first time she and the girls had ever played organized soccer in public. The first time their families would see them play.
Just by taking the field, they had challenged old beliefs and changed peoples’ perceptions. They’d inspired the girls watching them in the stands, and showed the boys that, ‘Hey, we can play too.’
*****
In March of 2011, inspired by the Arab spring in Tunisia and Egypt, a group of teens were arrested and tortured for writing anti-government graffiti in Daraa, a city in the southwest corner of Syria. Protests erupted throughout the city.
On March 18, demonstrators demanding the release of the detained teens clashed with government secutiry forces. According to reports, the security forces opened fire on the protestors, killing four people.
What began as unrest has since become full blown civil war and the greatest humanitarian crisis in recent memory.
Today, there are just under 4,000,000 Syrian refugees. Every day, 30 to 70 Syrians make the treacherous journey to cross the border into Jordan.
Roughly 82,000 of those refugees live in Za’atari camp. Nearly half of them are children.
Three years ago, Za’atari was just a barren desert. Today it is the 4th largest city in the country.
Rama is from Daraa, and she, her 6 sisters, brother, and her parents made the terrifying journey to Za’atari in January of 2013.
“On the day we left, our village was being bombed with jets. We were lucky to leave when they were on their way,” Rama said. “It was terrifying.”
After a journey through the desert in the middle of the night, they were met at the border by the Jordanian army. Rama and her family were put into trucks with other refugees, not knowing where they’d end up, and taken to Za’atari.
Life in Za’atari is hard. There are few jobs and sparse electricity. Food and water are strictly rationed, and the camp has been forced to cap the number of refugees due to a lack of resources.
In fact, shortly after Rama and her family arrived, her brother returned to Syria in order to find work and make money for the family.
The majority of the residents live in prefabricated housing units called caravans that are roughly 500 square feet. Imagine two shipping crates covered with a tent, a cement floored common area separating them. Then imagine a family of seven sharing it.
And it’s especially hard for young girls.
Rama goes to school for just three hours in the morning. She tends to the house and goes to the mosque. Like most conservative Muslim families, her traditional role is in the household. This is life for young girls at Za’atari.
As Rama’s teammate Mais Adnan Al Harere puts it, “People think that girls should stay at home and not go outside.”
****
Most girls are married at 16 years old, and the birthrate at Za’atari is shockingly high.
Because of cultural restraints, there are few activities in which the girls can engage.
“One of the issues is that there aren’t enough activities for young women,” explains Stephen Allen, a UNICEF employee stationed at Za’atari. “The girls want to do things, but they have to be culturally appropriate.”
But two years ago, Prince Ali bin al Hussein had an ambitious idea. The FIFA executive, and half-brother of the king, teamed up with UEFA to form an unconventional program and introduce the girls to a forbidden sport.
The program began with little interest. Girls were hesitant to join, and many parents throughout the camp frowned upon the idea.
“Girls don’t play sport at all, and of course not football. So this was the first challenge,” explains Carine Nkoue, a project coordinator within the program. “The second challenge was to have them play within the rules of the community.”
So they enclosed one of the boys’ soccer fields, trained female coaches, and began the process of recruiting young girls.
“I was sitting outside the house watching people playing,” Rama recalls. “A coach saw me and invited me to try.”
But like most girls, Rama had resistance from her father. “When she told me she was going to play. I told her no,” her father, Khalid Al Jbawi said. “She asked me again, and when I refused, she went away.”
And it’s changed her life.
“I became happier and more relaxed. It takes up all of my free time, so I don’t have time to do as many chores. I spend most of the time playing football.”
*****
This year, Rama’s team qualified for the summer tournament. Held on a dusty pitch, blocked off from outside view, eight teams played in a round robin event. The winner would get to play in the Championship on National Refugee Day.
The teams played without an audience. A few of the teams, sponsored by various consulates in Jordan’s capital of Amman, received jerseys and shoes. Others played barefoot. But they didn’t seem to mind. The girls were just happy to play a game they’d grown to love.
Rama’s team handily won all of their pool games, advancing to the next day’s championship game where, for the first time ever, she would play in front of an audience.
When the big day came, the support from the community was overwhelming. Other girls from the soccer program were there. The boys eagerly awaited their first girls’ soccer game. But nerves were high.
“They had really a lot of pressure to play in front of all those people. I was afraid that they were just to afraid to do it,” Nkoue describes.
But they did.
With the support of their friends and families, on this gravel pit in a Middle Eastern desert, the girls played.
Rama’s team lost 1-0. It was a heartbreaking loss, and they were devastated. But for everyone else in the camp, the score really didn’t matter. She and the other participants proved a much bigger point.
