The school looks like every other building on Aliyah and Florentine, deep in the heart of Southern Tel-Aviv. This feeling changes the second you enter Biyalik Roguzin. One of the first things any visitor sees is a gorgeous open air breezeway with different nations flags lining what would be the ceiling. It almost looks like these flags are floating if you glance quick enough. Here, children from the Philippines, Columbia, India, Israel, and a random island in Africa who’s name I don’t remember come together to learn and play the game they love, football.
The first thing I saw – or heard, rather – these pint size ambassadors do was cheer. It was so loud that it shocked me. I turned and saw Noam, their smiling and jovial coach walking to the concrete court (better suited for basketball, similar to Beit Hayeladim). The kids jumped on him as he smiled and they quickly got into stretches. They had the usual ones (touch your toes, move your arms in a circle, etc.) and some less conventional (like the group’s favorite, “sexy,” where they move their hips in a circular motion), which they hurried through to start drills and a scrimmage.
What ensued is really unimportant (they played some games, practiced headers, and had a long scrimmage), the key lesson is what Biyalik Roguzin stresses in its appearance and what Noam has fostered from this international group of footballers. They worked together as a team, despite their different backgrounds. Junior (the biggest child in this group, clearly) from the island in Africa who’s name I can’t remember fell at one point, only to yell in English at me “I’M A WHALE!” with a smile on his face, to the delight of the other kids. Only after getting over his laughter did a child from India come and help him up. On a beautiful goal later in the training session, an American (okay, me) cleared the ball out of goal by a throw (clearly the most American of football methods) which bounced to his teammate from the Philippines who proceeded to cross it to his partner from Columbia, who sent it into the back of the net past a goaltender from Africa. The most unifying moment of this sequence came in response to it. It echoed through our concrete court and out onto the streets. “Ezeh Goal!” (“What a goal!”) was heard all the way down Aliyah in the language of the State: Hebrew.
This post was written by Jesse Schneiderman, an International Intern for Mifalot.
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