In Johannesburg, these soccer players are preparing for the
biggest game of their lives. The challenge is to
control a ball they cannot see. They're South Africa's
first official blind soccer team, and they have to
overcome huge obstacles to represent their country in the inaugural
International blind soccer tournament in Moscow this week hosted by
the BRICS Plus Intergovernmental group. Our peoples to go
to Russia is to go and express that South African
people, uh, those people are living with blindness
, partially sighted. We are there for you.
Blind soccer played with eye masks and a ball with
a bell, and players shout to indicate their position
on the field. The South African team has 2
totally blind and 5 partially sighted players along with 1
sighted goalkeeper. They will face professional and semi-professional teams
from six other countries between December 18 and 20.
Most of the team's members come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
They struggle with a lack of resources for basic training
and traveling. We are dealing with an issue of
saying like, OK, do you have a toiletry
? Do you have warm clothes? Do you have
shoes? The Johannesburg Society for the Blind houses 5
of the players. Its chief operations officer, Nkosana
Koekka, says his group has struggled to raise funds
for their trip, and he says it's not right
when they now represent the country. As they are
national players now, the government should come on board
, recognize them, and everything should be. Nonetheless
, the team is ready to go for it.
We want to play soccer. We want to bring
something to the table. I want my mother to
be proud of me. Coach Mlongisi Msibi says he's
proud of how the team has grown.s are really,
really good, really, really good. They're not
resourced. They're not paid. We're going into a
tournament where people are being paid. They play blind
soccer at a professional level week in and week out
. All we have is hard, man, and
for me that's enough.