A Blitzkrieg of Soccer

Near the conclusion of Dave Bidini’s brisk, earnest and wanting book Home and Away: In Search of Dreams at the Homeless World Cup of Soccer, readers learn that the final game of the 2008 Homeless World Cup was played between Afghanistan and Russia. And, nearly three decades after the Soviet invasion that their country is still reeling from, the Afghans won. You want to hear more. What was it like for the Afghans to play—and win—against the Russians, representatives of those who had destroyed their own country? What was it like for them to realize that mighty Russia also had people who fell through society’s cracks and ended up—via a completely different route—in the same place they did? Was there any connection between the Russians and the Afghans—does sport bring the world’s street people together—or did old hostilities stand in the way?