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Eight players from Atlanta’s Soccer in the Streets program are to fly to Berlin this Sunday, June 25, to compete in the Street Football World Championship, a competition for “street players” from 24 countries who will be competing while soccer fans around the world are focused on the World Cup matches being held in Germany.

“It is a privilege and an honor for us that Atlanta’s program will be representing the entire United States,” Jill Robbins, the program’s executive director, told GlobalAtlanta.

She added that the Atlanta program, which is now part of a national organization, was the first Soccer in the Streets program when it was started in the late 1980s to develop both soccer and social skills of players from inner-city neighborhoods between the ages of 16 and 21. 

Streetfootballworld, a non-governmental organization that coordinates the efforts of some 80 programs around the world promoting soccer as a social program, selected the Atlanta organization to represent the U.S. in the Berlin championship.

According to Ms. Robbins, the Atlanta team was chosen because of its current success here and the organization’s persistence in pursuing the opportunity with the tournament’s promoters.

She is to be one of four adults accompanying the players who are to stay in Germany until Monday, July 12, so that they will be able to be in Berlin for the World Cup finals.

Ms. Robbins said that Soccer in the Streets has drawn corporate support locally because it provides a foundation for the personal and social development of its players, who come from Atlanta’s low-income neighborhoods. Among the chief benefactors are the German Consulate General in Atlanta, BellSouth Corp. and the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

In March, it started the “Equipo Positivo” campaign that seeks to develop 10 new soccer programs in the metro area where Hispanic youths will be able to participate.

The growing appreciation of soccer in the United States as reflected by the spread of Soccer in the Streets programs coincides with the growing presence around the world of streetfootballworld, which organized this first Street Football World Championship that is to take place in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district.

The assassination of Andres Escobar, a defender of Colombia’s team that competed in the 1994 World Cup held in Pasadena, Calif.’s Rose Bowl, was the spark that ignited the interest in forming such an organization, Ms. Robbins said. 

While defending the goal against the U.S. team, Mr. Escobar deflected a ball into Colombia’s goal, contributing to his team’s eventual 2-1 loss. Upon his return to his hometown of Medellin, Colombia, he was murdered in a fight over the errant goal.

The winners of the Street Football World Championship will receive the Andres Escobar Cup.

Juergen Klinsmann, a former world-renowned player and currently the coach of the German team, is a major supporter of the championship through his Youth Football Foundation.

The Atlanta team has been practicing at various locales including Atlanta Silverbacks Park near Northcrest Road off of I-85 and at Wolf’s Indoor Soccer in Marietta.

To learn more about Soccer in the Streets, go to www.soccerstreets.org To speak with Ms. Robbins, call (678) 993-2113 or send an email to jdrobbins@soccerstreets.org

Phil Bolton for GlobalAtlanta