National football teams made up of homeless people from around the world will soon gather in South Korea for the Homeless World Cup. For many of the players, the stakes are much higher than just the trophy on offer. As you walk from the underground station to the Powerleague football pitches in Shoreditch, London, you pass a makeshift bedroom under a railway bridge; a damp mattress, an empty wooden crate and scraps of cardboard strewn across the concrete.
It is one of countless signs of street homelessness in the shadows of the financial center of one of the world's richest cities. On those small football pitches, a young team are being put through their paces, with their Scottish coach barking out instructions and encouragement. They all wear red shirts with ‘England' emblazoned across the front.
But these aren't replicas of the Euro 2024 finalists , this is a different kind of England team. One soon to play the Homeless World Cup in South Korea. Among those playing is Mikhail Tsegay, a refugee from Ethiopia .
Like his teammates, he got involved through charity Street Soccer, which helps put together the England side for the tournament on top of their work to help the homeless through football. Tsegay was forced to flee his homeland in 2021 as a result of a brutal civil war , which eventually took the lives of more than 500,000 people. "It was a very, very hard time in my life.
I didn't know where my family were, alive or dead," Mikhail told DW. "I lost my big brother. I l.