Tomorrow at 1 p.m., on the
pitch of the Secondary School of Electrical Engineering
no 2 (25 Świt Street) in Poznań, the Polish national
team in streetsoccer is playing an indoor football match
with the team of the “Mam marzenie” Foundation from
Poznań. The national streetsoccer team consists, among
others, of a few players from the Barka Sports
Association for Social Integration, and currently has
the world vice-champion title. It’s going to be a
friendly match whose objective is to promote football
and the ideas of our organizations.
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fot. Jacek Kaczmarek |
Saturday’s friendly match was held at the sports
hall of the Secondary School of Electrical
Engineering in Poznan
„I wish to meet Pope John Paul II and I’d like the
Widzew Łódź Football Team to play better…”.
A guest player in the team of the “Mam marzenie”
Foundation will be Rafał Rogowski, a boy whose first
dream came true when on July 1st 2004 he was granted a
private audience with Pope John Paul II.
The “Mam marzenie” Foundation
has been created with the objective to realize the
dreams of Polish children suffering from
life-threatening diseases. It was inspired by the
realization of Chris Grecius’s last wish, whose death
was a beginning for the worldwide movement for making
children’s dreams come true. Our Foundation would like
to provide ill children and their families with some
unforgettable experience which could bring joy, strength
to fight against their illness and hope for the future
into their lives.
The
Vice-Champions of the World together with the team of
the “Mam marzenie” Foundation are playing a match with
Rafał as a guest player. The match will be held on
Saturday, January 21st 2006 in the Secondary School of
Electrical Engineering no 2 (25 Świt Street) in Poznań.
We hope to at least partially contribute to the
realization of one child’s dream. Everybody interested
in watching this unique match is warmly welcome.
INTEGRATION / A friendly match
Will Poznan host the Homeless Word Cup?
In this match, it was not the victory that was the most
important. The two teams, namely the world
vice-champions in street soccer (the Polish National
Team) whose administrator is Barka Sports Association
for Social Integration and the “Mam marzenie”
Foundation’s team from Poznan, met at the sports hall
belonging to the Secondary School of Electrical
Engineering in Poznan.
Although we are playing against such a superb team, we
seem to be doing quite well – says Piotr Andrzejewski,
the volunteer from the “Mam marzenie” Foundation. The
most important fact is that our dreamer, Rafał, can be
here with us today fighting for the goals with great
determination.
Rafał Rogowski’s dream came true when, on July 1st 2004,
he was granted a private audience with Pope John Paul
II. After he came back to Poland his condition started
gradually to improve. A serious cancer has sunk without
a trace and now he was doing so well during the match
that his friends carried him out of the pitch on their
hands in order to show how much they appreciated his
play.
Barka Sports Association for Social Integration is
applying for the organization of the Homeless World Cup.
The championships would take place at the turn of July
and August 2007 with Poznan hosting about 30 national
teams from all over the world. Both the Polish Football
Association and the Vice-President of the City of Poznan,
Maciej Frankiewicz, have already offered their support
for the whole enterprise. According to the latter, the
matches could be held in municipal sports facilities.
On Saturday January 21st 2006, at 1 p.m., at
the pitch of the Secondary School of Electrical
Engineering no 2 (25 Świt Street) in Poznań, the Polish
national street soccer team palyed an indoor football
match with the team of the “Mam marzenie” Foundation
from Poznan. The national street soccer team consists,
among others, of a few players from the Barka Sports
Association for Social Integration, and currently has
the world vice-champion title. It was a friendly match
whose objective was to promote football and the ideas of
our organizations.
The team of the “Mam marzenie” Foundation had a guest
player, Rafał Rogowski, a boy whose first dream had come
true when on July 1st 2004 he had been
granted a private audience with Pope John Paul II in the
Vatican.
The “Mam marzenie” Foundation
has been created with the objective to realize the
dreams of Polish children suffering from
life-threatening diseases. It was inspired by the
realization of Chris Grecius’s last wish, whose death
was a beginning for the worldwide movement for making
children’s dreams come true. Our Foundation would like
to provide ill children and their families with some
unforgettable experience which could bring joy, strength
to fight against their illness and hope for the future
into their
lives.
We hope to at least partially contribute to the
realization of one child’s dream. Everybody interested
in watching this unique match is warmly welcome. We
would also like to encourage people who are keen on
similar enterprises to contact the Sports Association or
the “Mam marzenie” Foundation.
January 21st 2006, Poznan
Before anything is going to be written here, we would
like to express our warm thanks to the board of
directors of the Secondary School of Electrical
Engineering no 2 in Poznan for providing the access
to their sports hall.
If I were ever to announce the match that has been held
today, I would put it like that:
“Ladies and Gentlemen, the greatest sporting event of
the year 2006! The football match of the “Mam
marzenie” Foundation (FMM) against the Polish national
street soccer team! “
It was the day when the „Mam marzenie” Foundation’s team
lead by Papa Tom (our coordinator) and by our dreamer
Rafał, also called Roger Mile, was to check the form of
the current world vice-champions, the players from the
Barka Sports Association who had represented Poland in
the previous Homeless World Cup.
You could see two teams facing each other, the teams
showing two different styles and strategies of playing.
You could admire their fabulous technique, accuracy,
ambition and tenacity. There were beautiful women in the
stands and the cheering seemed as wild as in the Saucer
in Katowice.
It is worth emphasizing that the match abounded in
numerous unconventional kicks, passes and shots. As both
teams were determined to play fair, the role of the
referee diminished just to blowing the whistle to begin
the game, for a break and at the end of each 15-minute
periods of the match (the sound was anyway only a matter
of agreement due to the lack of the whistle itself).
It wasn’t long before the first goal was scored. In the
very first minutes of the game Barka-Poland carried out
a neat attack scoring 0:1 as a result. The FMM’s
players looked a bit taken aback by the situation, but
organized themselves very quickly. They started putting
Papa Tom’s strategy outlined before the match into
practice, and from now on, the battle between the teams
seemed equal.
The FMM played with an increasing zest. Being cheered by
its six fans who were shouting their heads off, having
the team scarves wrapped around their necks due to the
cold, it took the players only a few minutes to score a
goal. The result was a draw of 1:1. The lucky
goal striker was Maciej – Lech’s son, neither the
son of an electrician, nor the president, but of an
actor who is, by the way, quite a splendid one.
The FMM’s players, however, didn’t consider this score
to be satisfactory. They started controlling the ball
for longer and longer periods of time, trying out
different methods to defeat the Cis-Barka’s goal keeper
who was anyway amazingly effective during the match.
Having heard the people in the stands shouting “We want
a goal!”, the FMM’s players felt they couldn’t
disappoint the spectators. In fact, they considered it a
dream, and therefore it was unheard–of to fail to
realize it (as any other). What follows, the game was
getting better and better. This time, the volunteers
evaded the regulations considering the realization of
dreams. They skipped the first meeting and went on to
the most important stage, namely the fulfillment, which
in this case was tantamount to scoring more goals. The
first period ended in the score of 2:1 for the
FMM’s team thanks to Majkel S.’s prime solo
attack.
The second part began with Barka-Poland’s fierce
attacks. Every now and then, the goal keeper, Andrzej
Koziołek-Fiołek, could see the opponents approaching
him with the ball, but he kept fulfilling his mission
like in a trance, like Dudek in Stamboul. The rest of
the team’s play was also above reproach. Our hero,
Rafał Roger Mile, assisted by Artur Ja, ja, Rota,
was successfully applying the divide and rule policy on
the defence line; Paweł Księgowy was right there
at all times doing his best to give assistance (you can
always count on him), the same as Felipe Gonzales del
Grześkowiak (not related, however, to our Zbig
Surówka). There was also Paweł Jan i Cki who did
a great job as a replacement on the forward line.
Although it seemed that Barka-Poland was in control of
the game, the FMM’s counter-attacks were incredible and
the team, thanks to Majkel (again) and Papa
Tom, scored another two goals within a few minutes.
As a result, all of a sudden the score amounted to
4:1.
If anybody thinks that Barka-Poland gave it up at that
point, they have made a gross mistake… Nothing of the
kind! The world vice-champions were not going to resign
that easily. When the FMM’s players got tired due to an
intensive play, the opponents took advantage of that,
and now both teams started to score goals in turns, one
for Barka-Poland, another for the FMM (Felipe
Gonzales), and still another stunning one for Barka-Poland,
which was playing very ambitiously. After a while, the
referee blew the whistle to end the second period with
the score of 5:3 for the FMM’s team. The last
part began in the same way as the whole match, with
Barka-Poland scoring a quick goal. The team was now just
a step away from the draw, as the score was 5:4.
It apparently irritated the dreamers who quickly decided
to alter their strategy. The change of their make-up,
the introduction of new elements of tactics and the fact
that they could perfectly work their opponents out
during the match thanks to the informative staff,
finally enabled them to regain the dominance at the
pitch.
Once again, we would like to express our recognition for
both teams’ goal keepers as on numerous occasions they
prevented their opponents from scoring a goal. What’s
more, their fabulous play won the hearts of the
spectators and was each time greeted with thunderous
applause.
The end of the match again belonged to Barka-Poland
whose frequent perpendicular passes, strong distant
shots and enthusiasm, bore fruit and they carried out a
few prime attacks. However, thanks to the defence lead
by our dreamer as well as to our goalkeeper’s incredible
play no more goals were scored. Once again, an old
football adage saying that “the situations you haven’t
taken advantage of will take revenge on you” became very
vivid when, in the last few minutes of the meeting,
Papa Tom with Majkel’s assistance lead a very
accurate attack and fixed the score of the match.
Our first friendly match, whose aim was to promote the
“Mam Marzenie” Foundation’s ideas through sporting
events, ended in our victory but it was not the score
that was the most essential here. In fact, everybody
was a winner in this match, and the most important for
us was that we could play with our dreamer, Rafał.
Thanks Rafał! For many of us it was the first time we
had been able to play together, and we hope it wasn’t
the last occasion to do so as we were having a lot of
fun!!! Besides, Rafał’s play was highly appreciated by
our admirable opponents who honoured him with a
beautiful commemorative certificate For the
Participation in the Match of the Polish National Street
Soccer Team.
We would like to take an opportunity and express our
thanks to our superb friends from Barka-Poland.
You have played a really awesome match and showed that
you have great hearts. We are deeply convinced that it
is only a beginning of our cooperation as far as
organizing common enterprises is concerned. And still,
we are awaiting a return match!
Account: Majkel S. and Papa Tom (just a bit)
Revision: Piter Andrzejki
The “Mam marzenie” Foundation – Barka-Poland 6:4
(2:1; 3:2; 1:1)
goals: Maciej Chojnacki, Michał Szczepaniak (2), Tomek
Moczerniuk (2), Filip Grześkowiak
make-up: Andrzej Fijołek - Artur Jarota, Rafał Rogowski
(the captain), Filip Grześkowiak - Maciej Chojnacki,
Paweł Semczuk, Michał Szczepaniak - Tomek Moczerniuk,
Paweł Janicki.
After the statutory game time, there was a penalty kicks
competition held in a very friendly atmosphere. Its
score was equitable, 7:7.
