A group of Year 9 students from Fairfield High School are lacing up their boots and preparing to play the world game.
They're among around 200 students from over 15 schools who are participating in the Football United gala day in Western Sydney.
It all starts with a makeshift Haka, led by a Football United volunteer who hails from Samoa.
The volunteers explain that's what Football United is all about - breaking down cultural barriers and showing that, here, it's OK to be yourself.
Football United belongs to an international network of NGOs using football as a vehicle for social change.
Many of the school children at this event come from some of the world's most troubled regions, including Iraq, the Palestinian Territories, Afghanistan, Sudan and Syria.
There's a sense of pride in where these students come from but also a desire to set that aside, to play, to mingle and to learn.
"It's good because you can come out and meet new people," said one student from Cambridge Park High School.
A Nepal-born student from Evans High School said he's there to learn about team work.
While his fellow student who came to Australia as a refugee from Afghanistan said he wants to "meet people from different countries and different cultures."
Uganda-born school student Robert Eremugo said: "football brings the happiness out of us."
Al Hassan Dauda is a refugee from Guinea who joined Football United when he was 12.
Now 20, his English is fluent, but back then communication was his first major challenge coming to Australia.
"I could speak French and I could speak other languages other than English. So the language was a big issue at the beginning. The only way you could get to people, the only way you could communicate is through a common language."
Enter football, a common language. Many of the students at the Football United gala day are still adapting to a new life in a new country. Many speak a language other than English as home. Many are still learning English themselves.
Al Hassan - now studying health sciences at Sydney University - is a role model and knows how they feel.
"Because some of them are trying to link between two identities, sort of like an identity crisis. And some feel left out and others are just trying to fit in," he said.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of Football United, started by Dr Anne Bunde-Birouste, from the University of New South Wales School of Public Health and Community Medicine.
She said in that time over six thousand kids have come out to play and speak the language of football.
"One of the things I would love is people who are decision makers, come and do what you're doing and spend a day with us and get to know these kids. And they're wonderful. The more we can offer them and the more we can engage with them, the better off we're all going to be."
Dr Bunde-Birouste says the long-term goal for Football United is to one day host an official FIFA Football for Hope festival in Australia, to help today's champions become tomorrow's role models.
