Rivalries left behind

A tangle of words some Arabic, some Swahili, some English swirls noisily over the the far field at the Onion Creek Soccer Complex.

Players move nimbly up and down the grass, signaling one another with waving arms and pointing fingers. With a thunk, a ball goes soaring. The kick misses, but the team from the Multicultural Refugee Coalition wheels around for another try.

Soccer isn't just a weekend pastime for this group, made up of refugees from eight countries. The competition in the Austin Men's Soccer Association league reminds them of their homeland, provides an instant community and helps them assimilate into a new life in Austin.

"It is my paradise," says Khatan Mustafa, 31, spreading his arms wide. "I never expected I'd be playing (soccer) in America. It's a great opportunity."

Mustafa, the team's goalie, worked for two years as an interpreter for the U.S. military in his homeland of Iraq. A target for terrorists, he resettled in Austin, where he says he has discovered a new life. Soccer is a big part of it.

"I'm playing with nets, goals, green grass," Mustafa says. "In Iraq, I played barefoot on pavement."

The game isn't without its challenges. Players come from places as diverse as Iraq, Congo, Colombia, Afghanistan, Liberia, Sudan, Eritrea, Bhutan and Palestine, with different languages, religions and cultures.

"Sometimes someone doesn't understand another," says Hasan Gateh, a refugee from Iraq and the team's volunteer coach. "But soccer is a common language."

"Pointing and gesturing — without that we'd be totally lost," says Julian Rivera, a 31-year-old player from Colombia.

The coalition, which sponsors the team, helps refugees from war-torn and economically disadvantaged countries. In 2010, it served 400 people from 23 countries, helping them with computer skills, résumé-writing and online job applications. It formed the soccer team last year to give the refugees another way to bond.

"All these people have fled terrible situations all over the world," says Multicultural Refugee Coalition co-founder Meg Erskine. "Soccer lets them forget about it for a while. It provides the refugees a sense of familiarity in a place that is so unfamiliar."

The Austin Co-Ed Soccer Association covers part of the team's fees, which total about $2,000 each season. Donors pitch in to supply uniforms. It's a step up from last year, when players used tape to put numbers on the back of plain T-shirts.

The team plays other recreational teams from around the city.

For the Multicultural Refugee Coalition players, it's been a learning process. Players have had to learn how to treat referees with respect, and at a recent game, they grappled with how to handle playing a team called SAS United that had two female players.

"For us it's difficult, because in our country women don't play soccer," says Rivera. He fled his South American homeland after receiving death threats. "We are not used to it. But they are really good."

There are other challenges. The team lost its first game last year, in part because most of the players were weak from fasting for Ramadan and had missed practices so they could attend religious observances.

For many of the players, though, the games are a highlight of the week.

"You can get together and have fun and forget about things that have happened to you," says Yubelly Perez, Rivera's wife, who is pregnant with their first child. She watches all the team's games. "It's a form of community. You become one. No war. No kidnappings. No threats."

Most of the players don't have cars, so even getting to practice and games is tricky. Casey Kasper, an English as a Second Language teacher who works with the coalition, spends hours each week rounding up players and delivering them to practice and games at the Onion Creek Soccer Complex and at Northeast Metropolitan Park in Pflugerville.

The team unites players who likely would have been rivals in their home countries, too, says Jeremy Solomons, a board member for the coalition. It gives them a sense of achievement when they win and helps break down stereotypes.

"Soccer is the most universal game in the world. It's a great way to come together as a team and forget those rivalries," Solomons says.

The team practices during the week at an abandoned field next to an apartment complex where some of the players live, using makeshift goals made of PVC pipe.