VOA慢速英语2016 难民足球队的目标是参加希腊联赛

Refugee 1 Football Team Aims for Greek League 难民足球队的目标是参加希腊联赛

Greece has a new football team called Hope Refugee United.

希腊有一支新的足球队，称为希望难民联队。

Every one of its players is a refugee.

每个队员都是难民。

It all started with a few young men kicking a football around at a refugee camp near Athens. Americans know the game as soccer.

这支足球队的成立要从一小群年轻人在雅典附近的难民营旁踢球谈起。美国人将这种游戏称为soccer（英式足球）。

The newly 2 formed team has played only a few games as Hope Refugee United. Now, the players are dreaming bigger as they take part in trials to form an official league team. Their hope is to compete against some of Greece’s best teams in the coming weeks.

这支新成立的足球队已经作为希望难民联队参加了几次比赛。目前，队员们的梦想变得更为远大，他们想要参加选拔赛，以组建正规的联队。他们希望在未来几周内，能够与希腊最优秀的球队进行竞争。

For many of the players, this chance to compete fills an important void 3 in their lives. They find life in their refugee camp at times frustrating 4, and with little to do. Sometimes, there are fights between people of different ethnicities.

对于这些队员来说，得到参加比赛的机会可以填补他们生命中重要的空缺。有时他们觉得难民营的生活令人沮丧，他们整天无所事事。不同种族的难民之间时不时会出现斗殴事件。

However, a shared love of the sport of football has begun to bring the refugees 5 together.

然而，大家对足球运动的共同热爱使得这些难民开始团结起来。

Seventeen-year-old Fahim Ahmad fled to Greece from Afghanistan. He says that when he and others formed teams to play football, the refugees seemed friendly and less tense. The players did not care about ethnicity. They only wanted peace and to make friends.

17岁的法西姆·阿哈穆德从阿富汗逃到希腊。他表示，自己和其他人组建了足球队后，这些难民变得友好起来，关系也不那么紧张了。这些队员不再在乎种族问题。和平和交友是他们唯一关心的问题。

The refugee team now has received support from a number of people, including Petros Kokallis. He is a former vice 6 president of Olympiakos, one of the country’s most famous football teams. His non-governmental organization called Organization Earth, has been providing support for football training.

目前，这支难民队得到了包括彼得罗斯·可卡里斯在内的许多人的支持。彼得罗斯是奥林匹亚科斯（希腊最著名的足球队之一）的前副主席。“组织地球”是他成立的非政府组织，一直在提供足球训练方面的支持。

This team is going to compete in a Greek championship, so we think this is a great opportunity for these guys to represent their community in the wider Greek community and interact 7 with it.

“因为这只难民队目前正准备参加希腊联赛，所以我们认为这是一个不错的机会，他们可以代表自己的群体参与到更大的希腊社会中，并与其进行互动。”

Thanks to Organization Earth’s support, the players now make trips out of the refugee camps to a play on a better field.

多亏了“组织地球”的支持，这些队员目前踏出了难民营，走上了更好的比赛场地。

Organization Earth also has helped with other projects. At the Skaramagas refugee camp, the group is showing children to play the sport. Petros Kokallis hopes to expand the efforts and get the football players out of the camp as often as possible.

该组织也已经帮助了其他的项目。在Skaramagas难民营，他们教孩子们如何踢足球。彼得罗斯希望更加努力，尽可能多地帮助足球队员离开难民营。

One of the main goals of the program is to de-ghettoise refugees and get them out of camps and get them into normal society.

“该项目的主要目标之一是减少集中居住的难民，让他们走出难民营，融入正常的社会生活。”

These efforts have been working for the players of Hope Refugees United. As the team trained for its third game, player Ali Shaheen explained why the name of their team feels just right.

他们所做的这些努力都是为了希望难民联队的成员。当队员在为第三次比赛接受培训时，队员阿里·沙欣解释了球队名字恰如其分的原因。

I feel like football makes me alive. I play football with the friends, the guys. I feel like I forget all of the bad stuff 9, really. I feel like I forget everything. I don’t think about the past, like the war, or anything. I just think about my future.

“我觉得足球队让我充满活力。我和朋友们一起踢足球。我真的忘记了不好的东西。我感觉我忘记了一切。我不会再想到过去，想到战争，想到一切。我只想自己的未来。”

Words in This Story

frustrating - adj. causing feelings of anger and annoyance 10

ghetto 8 – n. the poorest part of a city

interact – v. to talk or do things with other people

league – n. a group of sports teams that play against each other

opportunity – n. an amount of time or a situation in which something can be done

void – n. a large empty space