On the day that the World Cup reaches its climax this Monday morning, with the eyes of the world fixed on Russia, a group of young Melbourne-based footballers will fly to Brazil where another global football tournament, Neymar Jr’s Five 2018 World Final, takes place on 20 and 21 July.
Their team, the Melbourne Street Crew (Slammers) are one of two teams representing Australia at the tournament, after winning a national final in Sydney in April; their fellow travellers, the Adelaide Comets, won the Australian Women’s Final in May.
Two of the Slammers are twins; Chris and Kosta Droutsas.
Speaking about the trip, Chris told Neos Kosmos “I think it’s pretty cool, just the fact that we’re going overseas, because it’s our first overseas trip. It’s pretty cool seeing different cultures and playing soccer, which we love, in another country.”
A highlight is sure to be meeting one of their idols Neymar, with whom they have a meet and greet scheduled.
On Monday, Chris and Kosta, along with teammates Ryan Losty, Jacob Lay, Jack Fogarty, and Josh Close fly to Brazil where they will play at least five group games against teams who have qualified from 59 countries.
“The Neymar Jr Fives is like a street-style five-a-side game,” explains Chris. “It could be played on concrete, synthetic, sand, or dirt. Whereas futsal is played on a wooden floor surface. There’s no goalie in the Neymar tournament. There’s just little goals. It’s a real skill-based game.”
The Droutsas twins, who recently turned 21, and teammate Losty also play for local team Eastern Lions in the Victorian NPL.
“The experience so far has been absolutely amazing,” said Losty. “We still cannot believe we have earned the right to represent Australia at the World Finals in São Paulo, Brazil. We are absolutely buzzing and are hungry to do as well as we can as we come up against some of the other 59 competing nations in Brazil.”
When asked if the experience could have any significance in terms of his development as a player, Chris’ reply indicates the trip for him is more about having fun with his mates than achieving his goals as a footballer.
“This is just one of those once in a lifetime opportunities,” he says. “Because we just entered the tournament as a fun thing. We didn’t even know we were going to Sydney at first. So we won that and we were like, ‘this is cool, we’ll just go to Sydney and have a bit more fun and see what happens.’ And we somehow won that. And now we’re going to Brazil and we’re going to enjoy it just like we’ve been doing in Melbourne and Sydney. We’ve taken it seriously, but not to the point where we are going to get something out of it. Just more of an experience really. Anything can happen.”
There’s no doubt about that. The trip will see the players explore the world famous city of Rio De Janeiro, as well as São Paulo where the tournament takes place.