THE PROFILE of Irish women in sport has never been higher as five young Limerick women have done their bit for the Treaty City in the international arena.
The five members of Moyross Women’s Soccer Club were selected from league players around the country to join the Irish team who competed in the Homeless World Cup in Sacramento, California, earlier this month.
The determined players went into the competition ranked 10th in the world and came home ranked fourth, “a fantastic result considering we were playing against people from Chile and Mexico, who grew up knowing nothing but street soccer,” Amy McCormack, one of the Limerick players, told the Limerick Post.
The Homeless World Cup is made up of teams of people who face challenges of homelessness, addiction, and marginalisation.
“It was a fantastic experience, a real eye-opener,” said Amy.
“A lot of people had so little. Some of the them were going back to their families but others were going home to nothing.
“The competition was great. The training coming up to it, travelling to Dublin to meet the rest of the team in Tallaght, and then driving back after two and half hours tough training was hard, but it was all worth it.”
“The language barrier was there but we made a lot of friends and we’re in touch on Facebook and Instagram. We were delighted to come back ranked fourth in the world.”
The Moyross club held an event last week to honour the achievement of the five women. Family members, teammates, friends, and neighbours turned out to celebrate with them in droves.
“The idea behind the Homeless World Cup is to give people hope and it certainly does that, shared Amy.
“It was a once in a lifetime experience because each country has to bring a different team each year to give more people an opportunity to take part. We’re very glad we got to go.”
