I was born and raised in a centuries-old slum in the heart of Cairo, Egypt, where young kids and youth did not stop playing football. I played football in a narrow alley, in a youth center, and in a schoolyard. I even played in a field surrounded by armed soldiers during the Egyptian revolution. I played it with a well-made sock ball, a plastic ball, and one bearing the flags of all teams participating in that year’s World Cup. Sometimes, I played with small tin cans.
I had repeatedly claimed that football is the simplest game on earth. I believed the ball is the single most important tool in the game. I was ignorant of the fact that there is no football without a solid surface carrying the game and its players.
That fact became most evident the day I arrived at a small island in Thailand. A floating village had been built, overthrowing the dreams of its children to play football, and depriving them of any chance of a solid surface to play on.
They had no option but to circumvent the nature of their village, and from there, they made history.
From Indonesia to Island of the Flag