{"id":62395,"date":"2025-09-05T15:34:57","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T15:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/playing-for-your-country-is-the-best-feeling\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T15:34:59","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T15:34:59","slug":"playing-for-your-country-is-the-best-feeling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/playing-for-your-country-is-the-best-feeling\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Playing for your country is the best feeling’"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"BBCBBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“Representing your country is the best thing, there is no better feeling,” says Sakariya Abdi Hassan<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Sakariya Abdi Hassan was playing for non-league side AFC Sudbury when he got an unexpected phone call.<\/p>\n

It was an invitation to play for Somalia’s national team.<\/p>\n

Football-mad Sakariya, known as Sak, came to England from the Netherlands at age seven and bounced around academies including Leyton Orient, QPR and Tottenham.<\/p>\n

He currently plays for Wealdstone in the National League, and last season joined Baller League, the new six-a-side tournament fronted by YouTuber KSI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But representing his country was something he’d never imagined.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t think it was possible because of the level I was playing at,” he tells BBC Newsbeat.<\/p>\n

“But then I got the call.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Since then he has played for the Ocean Stars, as the team is known, 10 times and scored twice.<\/p>\n

Currently they are ranked 200th in the world \u2013 which makes them the third lowest- ranked team from Africa.<\/p>\n

They haven’t won a game in six years and are also bottom of their World Cup qualification group.<\/p>\n

Sak admits there’s still a long way to go, but his outlook is optimistic. <\/p>\n

“We’re doing a lot better than we were ten years ago, we’re not getting thumped 5-0, 6-0 any more,” he says.<\/p>\n

“When I first played for Somalia, we were only flying out once every year, and now we’re flying out every international break. <\/p>\n

“It’s getting better but we need to carry it on.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sak dreams of playing at Somalia’s Mogadishu stadium<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Somalia has been affected by civil war since 2009, and the last time the Ocean Stars played at their home stadium in capital Mogadishu was in 1986.<\/p>\n

Sak says it would be a dream to play there.<\/p>\n

“If we were to play at home it would be such a massive thing for us,” he says.<\/p>\n

“When we normally play, we only get one or two hundred people coming to support us and we have to play in Djibouti and other places when playing at ‘home’.<\/p>\n

“Having a full stadium supporting us, that would be amazing.”<\/p>\n

Sak believes the team can reach The Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), a tournament similar to the Euros with 24 national sides in the finals.<\/p>\n

“Obviously we are far from winning it, but we can definitely get in it, within the next 10 years we can definitely qualify,” he says.<\/p>\n

And he hopes to inspire some more homegrown talent.<\/p>\n

“Football is massive in Somalia,” he says.<\/p>\n

“Girls, boys, everyone plays it growing up and it’s the biggest sport in Somalia, everyone watches it.”<\/p>\n

It’s not just fans back home, though. Britain has a large Somali community and whenever the national team plays, Sak says he feels the love coming from England.<\/p>\n

“There’s so many watch-alongs, it’s unreal,” he says.<\/p>\n

“When I scored for Somalia, my phone was blowing up. I couldn’t even go on it, the notifications were crazy. There’s nothing like the love the Somali community gives.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Somalia fans Andreas Ali and Abshir Adan say it’s inspiring to see a player like Sak on the pitch<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Abshir Adan and Andreas Ali both play for Phoenix Next Gen, a Bristol-based Somali football team, and both are fans of Sak.<\/p>\n

“It’s amazing, seeing someone who is from the same background,” says Andreas.<\/p>\n

“Seeing someone who has made it to an international level will only inspire the younger generation.<\/p>\n

“Were very proud of the boys, they make the whole community proud and it’s only a matter of time ’til we get some wins.”<\/p>\n

And, if the team continues to improve, Abshir thinks it will lead more of the Somalian diaspora to play for the Ocean Stars.<\/p>\n

“Now people from countries like Sweden, the UK and across the world are realising that Somalia is a team that they can play for,” he says.<\/p>\n

“In ten years or so we will see plenty of Somali kids playing professional football in England, and hopefully playing for Somalia and Sak Hassan will be the trailblazer.”<\/p>\n

Somalia may not have won a game for six years, but there have been a handful of draws.<\/p>\n

One of the most memorable, a World Cup qualifier against Guinea, stands out to Sak because Borussia Dortmund striker Serhou Guirassy was in the opposing side.<\/p>\n

“He scored a hat-trick against Barcelona, but he couldn’t score against Somalia,” says Sak.<\/p>\n

Somalia will be hoping to repeat the feat, or go one better, when the teams meet again later for another qualifier.<\/p>\n

“We would love to get a win, but a draw wouldn’t be a bad result for us,” says Sak.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen to Newsbeat live<\/a> at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BBC “Representing your country is the best thing, there is no better feeling,” says Sakariya Abdi Hassan Sakariya Abdi Hassan was playing for non-league side AFC Sudbury when he got an unexpected phone call. It was an invitation to play for Somalia’s national team. Football-mad Sakariya, known as Sak, came to England from the Netherlands […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[279],"tags":[5961,937,1871],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62395"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62395"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62397,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62395\/revisions\/62397"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}