There is no greater honour than representing your country on the international stage, many dream of the opportunity, only few are ever able to reach it. SSC were not going to let anything get in their way, finding a path to set up their own national team in a fully fledged international sport with decades of professional experience and expertise.

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HOW THIS HAPPENED

The Crew found a gap in the footballing ecosystem and capilalised on it. Obviously it's not quite as simple as that, but it's not far from the truth. As the founder of Sydney Street Crew, I always have my eye on the next great opportunity to take our crew to the next level. Prior to the FIF7 World Cup and Club World Cup whcih we just competed in, SSC has had a major presence in two formats, 3X3 and Futsal. Through Futsal we have grown to play internationally at a professional level under our SSC name and branding, as well as competing in National level leagues and events, we can't go any further up the Futsal chain with the options available to us. With 3X3, we have grown a league system as well as having our own national team where we compete under the Australian banner every year, this year we will compete in China again to take glory for our country. As you can see there isn't much further up we can go with 3X3, with events internationally typically being quite small and not worth the expense to travel unless it's a major event such as China, so I've looked at what else is out there. That's where 7v7 entered the conversation. I had seen 7v7 around for quite a while, it's massively popular all over the world, yet it had no footprint in Australia at a competitive level. So after building up SSC, Contraband, Streetball, and Street Football Australia I decided now would be the time to get in touch with FIF7 about the possibility of linking up to become Australia's national team.

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THE TRIAL

FIF7 were receptive to the idea, however they made one thing clear from the start; we get one opportunity, we will be graded, and then it will be decided if we can be a member. I was given 2 months to organise a whole squad, professional kits, all the accessories, organise travel/transit, and then get our legs on the ground with as competitive a squad as possible. To cut a long story short, I made it happen and SSC competed in the FIF7 World Cup as 7 Football Australia, and then also the Club World Cup as Sydney Street Crew (or as the Brazilians called us "SIDNEY"). Throughout the whole event we were out maneuvered on the pitch and we failed to win a single match, however we put up as much of a fight as possible in a sport where the first time we ever played it we were in a World Cup match against Serbia and a few days later were playing Brazilian Ultra Giants Corinthians in the Club World Cup. It was a wake up call, however we were extremely professional, competed to our absolute best and showed that we deserved to be in attendance. We were approved to become Australia's national team under FIF7 and henceforth are invited to all future official Football 7 / FIF7 tournaments/events.

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NEXT UP

What's next is extremely simple in thought, but a huge amount of work. We build out the 7X7 league system as a part of Street Football Australia, just as we have done for 3X3. We then set up our official training and travel squad to train and be ready for the next events. Our next tournament is set to be the Asia 7's Club Championship where we will compete under the Sydney Street Crew badge, as Australia's official representative. We have our spot in this awesome sport, we'll take full advantage and power on to greater heights.