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Players from Israeli and Palestinian team show off their flags after beating Poland in the Street football world Festival 06. (AP)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners July 3, 2006 |
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Like Luis Figo or Michael Ballack, Yakir Naftali is after a trophy at the World Cup.
Most of all though, the 18-year-old Israeli is playing for peace.
Naftali is part of a combined Israeli-Palestinian entry in Streetfootballworld Festival 06, a weeklong five-a-side competition that kicked off Sunday with the blessing and support of FIFA.
"We are together all day. We go shopping, play soccer, talk -- but not politics with us," explained Naftali, whose favorite player is Argentina playmaker Juan Roman Riquelme. "We play together, we sleep together. We're friends."
Twenty-two teams are competing for the Copa Andres Escobar, a trophy named after the Colombian international who was shot to death following his own-goal at the 1994 World Cup.
Manager Anwar Zaidan, a Palestinian, says his team is a winner no matter what happens at the competition.
"The main goal ... is to show the whole world and ourselves that we could live together and respect each other," he said. "It's the best prize in all the whole world."
Before the tournament kickoff, the mixed team showed its spirit as two players - one Israeli and one Palestinian -- danced on the pitch together. Arm in arm, they waved their respective flags with big smiles.
It will be back to reality for Naftali after the event, however. He is due to enter the Israeli army.
The mixed Israeli-Palestinian squad is a product of the Peres Center for Peace, founded in 1996 by former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres to help bring the Middle East together. The center features "twinned peace sports schools" that give Israeli and Palestinian youth a chance to interact via soccer and basketball.
Supporters of the project include manager Jose Mourinho of England's Chelsea and Sven-Goran Eriksson, the departing coach of the England national team.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter helped kick off the carnival-like opening, talking up the tournament in his own unique way.
Street football is accessible to everybody, he explained, adding "it is an instinctive movement of the human being to kick (a ball)."
Rich or poor, regardless of race or religion, "everybody can play this game," he said. That includes women at the Berlin event.
FIFA will do everything it can to support organized street football, he added, "because they are part of the big family."
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