Streetkids

The best stadium in the Eastern Europe “Donbass Arena” has opened its gates for children from the “Brownie” football club. No-no, they didn’t come here to watch the game of “Shakhter”, owner of the last UEFA cup in the history. Odessa team, as well as Kiev and Donetsk teams however, got an opportunity to participate in the presentation of the FIFA World Cup which was held in Donetsk on March 23 this year.

Sports events were held in the terms of the joint project of Odessa Charity Fund “The Way Home” and Coca-Cola company – “Green Football for Children Health”. Exactly Coca-Cola jointly with the UNICEF children foundation gave guys from Odessa, Donetsk and Kiev an opportunity to visit “Donbass Arena” and see the World Cup. Children from Odessa as well as kids from Kiev arrived to Donetsk in the evening of March 22, the night before the football tournament. In the terms of the ecological action children planted roses in the park near “Donbass Arena”, which they brought specially for this purpose from their cities and also hung feeding boxes for birds, which they made with their own hands. Despite it was slightly raining all day long in Donetsk “green” action was very friendly and fun. During the entire next day young football players spent in “Donbass Arena”. In the morning teams played the mini-football tournament, in which the home team (boys from Donetsk) won. “Brownies” didn’t manage to get to the semi-finals, they yielded to the further winners of the tournament – team from Donetsk. It is worth to mention the activities of Odessa goalkeeper Sasha Urshansky, who saved the gates from inevitable goals many times.

But as they say, one body is nobody. The teammates were not able to support their goalkeeper at the decent level – while losing the game during the match the “brownies” had a few real opportunities to hit the opponents’ gates. To make the long story short, the field players still have to work on realization of the goal situations. After the football squabbles all of them went on a sightseeing tour around the stadium and participated in the football attractions, which were placed in the higher tier of “Arena”. Guys competed in the ball controlling techniques, accurate hits into the gates and played desk football. Besides that all participants had an opportunity to take part in the face-art – they got “football” make up on their faces which usually the most inveterate footballs fans have. Right before the World Cup presentation all present people watched 3D movie dedicated to the forthcoming football forum, which will be carried out this summer in SAR. In this movie children were able to see the legends of the world football and the best games situations of the past world championships. The festive opening of the World Cup was the final chord of the program, in which Walter Gordon, regional “Coca-Cola Ukraine” manager , Alexander Lukyanenko, mayor of Donetsk and Mircha Luchesky, the main coach of Donetsk “Shakhter” took part.  By the way, the presence of the mentor of the team, fans of which almost all “brownies” are, was not left without attention of the young visitors from Odessa.  As a result – there is a photo with a person thanks to whom Ukrainian team won the Euro Cup for the first time in history. It is also remarkable that all participants of this football event received printed out photos with World Cup.

To sum up “brownies’” trip to Donetsk, I want to say that even thought so far it wasn’t possible for the team to win a football tournament, the victories will come in the future. The most important is that the team was able to “touch” the football history, traditions and customs. I think that young football players will always remember their trip to the capital of Ukrainian football (which Donetsk definitely is).