Football; a sport everyone loves, is played almost all over the world. It consists of different leagues, age groups and a lot of other things. Each league having their own set of rules.
FIFA; Federation International Football Association holds tournaments all over the world. The most known and loved being World Cups. Held at an interval of every four years, the world cup is a tournament where countries must qualify to participate and compete to eventually win the whole tournament. The countries that want to host it must bid for it. This time, India is the host for the U17 World Cup. A first for the country. As a result, the Indian U17 team gets the opportunity to compete as well. This being the first time India is competing in a football world cup. Having already qualified for the World Cup in 1950, they withdrew before the tournament started because they were not allowed by FIFA to play barefoot.
For every World Cup, a draw is conducted, this world cup wasn’t any different! The draw was held in Mumbai on 7^th July 2017 at Hotel Sahara Star Mumbai. It was live and watched by people all over the world. But every event requires a whole lot of effort and preparation. And for all this, a team is required. FIFA asked for people to register for volunteering and had a whole process to find 47 people to help with the draw. The volunteers were chosen months prior to the main event, everyone waiting with anticipation for the whole thing to start.

My aunt and I were a part of the 47 volunteers. She was chosen for Venue Operations and I was put in Marketing-Events. Because of FIFA being such a huge international brand, we couldn’t hold in our excitement. We were looking forward to taking in the experience of volunteering for FIFA. The two of us being huge football fans added to it. We worked a couple of days before the 7^th. But when D Day arrived, the excitement reached a whole new level. I eventually landed up working along my aunt in Venue Operations, which was nothing less than an adventure. To start off, we ended up wearing our Puma shoes to an event that was sponsored by Adidas. After a heavy lunch, we ended up finding a way to work around that. We then had to set up booths for the host cities at the venue. I was helping the media team get things ready for the media. During which I had the opportunity to meet football legends Nwankwo Kanu and Esteban Cambiasso. We got to click pictures with them and talk to them for a bit. I walk into the venue an hour before the draw starts, when everything was already set up. I had to man the Delhi table and help my aunt with making people sign this big white board with #FootballTakesOver written on it. We weren’t expecting much.

But as soon as people started walking in, we were on a roll. We were getting our signatures and watching all the delegates, coaches, players and a lot of other people walk by. While we got to speak to all the coaches present over there, me and my aunt were waiting for our favourite team coaches to arrive. When they did, we ended up conversing with them and taking pictures. Something we never thought would happen in a million years. To our surprise, we got to attend the draw and watch it live. Something we weren’t expecting. We were a part of history that night, 7^th July 2017 will always be a night me and my aunt will remember forever! One down, one to go.

 

Let the games begin!