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team of eight people from various socially marginalized groups will represent the country in the 2015 Homeless World Cup (HWC) street soccer competition that will be held this month in Amsterdam.

The eight players '€” two representing people with HIV/AIDS, two representing former drug addicts and four representing the poor '€” have secured spots on the team after they passed a series of selection tests conducted by Bandung-based Rumah Cemara, a group that focuses on HIV/AIDS issues and serves as the national organizer for the HWC.

Speaking to The Jakarta Post on Wednesday, Indonesian street soccer team manager Rizki Kurniawan said at least 80 aspiring candidates had signed up to join the team. During the tryouts, the selection team, according to Rizki, ranked candidates not only based on physical fitness and soccer techniques but also on attitude.

'€œThis year, the selected players come from Bali, West Nusa Tenggara and the six provinces of Java,'€ he said.

Held for the first time in 2003, the HWC is an annual street soccer competition that brings together more than 300,000 people who are homeless and/or socially marginalized.

'€œBy participating in the competition, a person with HIV/AIDS, for example, can have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to represent his or her country on the international stage. Hopefully, it will change his or her life,'€ Rizki said.

Unlike many other sport competitions, men'€™s and mixed street soccer teams compete for the same cup in the HWC. Women'€™s soccer teams, meanwhile, vie for a different cup.

This year, 48 men'€™s and mixed teams and 16 women'€™s teams have signed up for the competition, which will run from Sept. 12 to 19.

Prior to their departure for the competition, the players, according to Rizki, underwent intensive training under the supervision of coach Gimgim Sofyan.

In its maiden participation in the competition in 2011, Indonesia finished in sixth place. The country'€™s best results were in 2012 when it finished in fourth place.

Muhammad Farid, 24, a member of the Indonesian street soccer team, said he hoped that his participation in the competition would give him the opportunity to improve his life.

'€œI hope I can get a better job so that I can make my parents happy,'€ said Farid, who grows and sells kangkung (water spinach) and spinach in his hometown in Sidoarjo, East Java, to make ends meet.

Twenty-two-year-old Jaka Arisandy, another team member, said he wanted to use the opportunity to develop his futsal skills.

'€œAt first, I did not believe I had made it onto the team because I'€™m of slight build,'€ said Jaka, who is a member of an amateur futsal club in Bandung.

According to the results of the competition'€™s drawing, held on Aug. 2, Indonesia will be in Group D with Italy, Costa Rica, Canada, Slovenia and the Czech Republic in the qualifying round.

According to the rules of the tournament, every team must have four players '€” one goalkeeper and three outfield players '€” on the field during a game.

In the qualifying round, winning teams will receive three points while the losing teams receive none. If a match ends in a draw, it is decided by a sudden-death penalty shoot-out.

In matches decided by a penalty shoot-out, the winning team gets two points and the losing team gets one.