THE CHANGING FACE OF THE HOMELESS WORLD CUP
Credit: Anita Milas
The above title is really something of a red herring – or, rather, a beautifully-manicured ‘branco’ beard – as we caught up with the hirsute head coach of the Portugal team, Bruno Seco, a familiar face at Homeless World Cups since 2011.
After studying sport at university, coaching children’s football teams then, 20 years ago, starting work for a local NGO (non-governmental organisation) that used sport as a tool in communities, government housing areas and prisons, Bruno began working with disadvantaged groups. This led to his involvement with Futbol de Rua, the national street soccer project with which he first accepted a district coaching role, then the post of national coach.
Kicking off in Mexico in 2012, he’s taken teams to all tournaments since plus the European Street Soccer festival in 2016 and the multi-national tournament in Madrid last year.
However, Bruno is more than head coach – he also combines his ‘day job’ as mental coach with his volunteer coaching role with the street football players.
“This is personally a fascinating process for me," he explains. “It’s very interesting to analyse the profiles of the players, matching them with on-field positions and off-pitch training.
"The first stage of the process, when preparing the national team, is to get to know the players as people, know their profile, their story,” he continues, “as before you’re a player, you’re an individual. From there, you can understand what kind of game suits them, what kind of team dynamic suits better – match the personal profile with the football player profile. When you've mapped that out for the participants, then you can start getting a clearer view of how you’re going to train your team.”
While Bruno’s focus is on the team as a whole, his mental coaching skills complement those of the other coaches, each with their additional specialist roles. “We try to be the most professional team possible, within the fact we are amateurs; we have Rafael as the team manager, myself as the head coach, Francisco taking care of all the physical development and Nuno taking care of the personal development.
“When I’m assessing the match – before and after – I'm still a mental coach, so I’m going to address things in a different way, with a very positive outlook to all the players, envisioning not just the match but the whole experience. There’s always a bit of the mental coach in the sporting coach.”
An ongoing mental challenge for many players – and indeed, coaches, managers and volunteers – is dealing with ‘comedown’ following each tournament. From being together in a positive, expectant, focused atmosphere – and even enjoying a bit of the celebrity culture by representing their country – it's back to normal life once the final whistle blows.
Bruno agrees it can be a challenge and continues: “They arrive at the tournament on a high, then it’s back to reality. This is an intense experience and although players know they can still take part in the street football programme – keep playing, locally and nationally – they are aware Homeless World Cup participation is once in a lifetime.
"So, it becomes all about managing the players’ self-esteem. Allowing them to dream but always with a steady foot on the ground because when this ends on 15 July, you go back and then you need to rearrange yourself and adapt all your learnings to your daily life again.
“It’s all about taking what you learn and experience here and transferring it to your personal daily life while remaining focused; always dreaming but with your feet on the ground. That’s what happens here – teams always dream about winning but, realistically, understand that the other teams also want to win, have also been training hard, also want to give their best. It’s a personal development process – two steps forward, one step back, three steps forward and so on but always with the momentum forward.
“This is all a fascinating experience for me as it’s a totally different target group from the people I work with day to day.”
Keeping his players engaged during the pandemic provided more learning challenges for Bruno and the team. By the end of March 2020 there were no training sessions, never mind festivals, so they focussed on a less physical part of the programme; life skills development sessions, the pathways to encourage former players to become coaches, managers or referees. Financial resources, time and skills were channelled in another direction to push forward a different slice of the Futebol de Rua cake before, into 2021, normality began to resume.
“Though the shortage of opportunities for all people, not just the street soccer participants, to be able to do sport caused an issue,” says Bruno, “the bigger challenge was the lack of freedom that people had, stuck at home, in small flats, without liberty to move around – that feeling of being confined had a big hit on people’s mental health.
“That and the doubt that was created. People didn’t know how the pandemic was going to end, how the world was going to rearrange, and that uncertainty created fear which had a bigger impact on people than the lack of exercise or sport.”
Now, however, the welcome normality of a Homeless World Cup has resumed.
A wide grin immediately divides the beard and moustache on Bruno’s face. “It’s fantastic. It makes you feel alive again. The adrenalin, the blood pumping, back in the competition, back on the field – the risk of losing versus the desire to win. It’s sport. It’s life.”
The beard moves animatedly as Bruno’s smile develops. Ah, that magnificent beard, which has changed somewhat in shading since Cardiff 2019 – is there a deeper tale rooted in its origins?
Bruno throws back his head and laughs. “There are three reasons for it,” he explains. “First, it’s for recognition, allowing people within and outside the sports field to easily find me.
“Second, on a more personal note, as it’s so thick and I’m always touching it, this encourages me to smoke less and stop biting my fingernails.
“However, the main reason is that I took something I didn’t like – my hair becoming white, which felt like a negative – and changed it into a positive by turning it into my trademark. Turning your handicaps into your strongest feature is a learning process, embracing change and welcoming growth.”
Credit: Anita Milas
Words: Isobel Irvine