From Kuwait with love: the story of how Ralph Ferrao found a new love of futsal

It’s 9pm on a Wednesday afternoon in Kuwait and the parents of Ralph Ferrao sit in their living room. A news programme is on the television, it whispers about another missile that mistakenly landed in Kuwait.

No one is focused on the TV, instead they are huddled round a small phone that is on max volume. It’s a livestream from England, a country that no one in the room has any personal connection with.

They go onto YouTube and follow the link that their son has sent them. It takes them to a livestream for a varsity match between De Montfort University and University of Leicester. They all start cheering as soon as the screen loads up. 

On the screen is 23-year-old Ralph Ferrao leading the university futsal second team out to play in one of the biggest games of the year. The threat of what’s going on around them feels non-existent for a short while as they see their son thriving. It means more to them. . 

It had always been a dream of Ralph’s to become a professional football player and he started playing the sport at age three. His family were the ones to encourage him towards a career in sports as they were both accomplished in sport. 

“My dad was a track and field 100 metre sprinter, my mum was a netball player,” says Ralph who was inspired by his family’s sporting journeys. 

At 20-years-old he moved to the UK to study but he made the trip without his parents as they had to continue working back home. There were no doubts in their mind about the move except for one, “the only doubt that was in my mum’s mind was how I’m gonna cook,” says Ralph.

The priority when he arrived in the country was getting to Leicester and DMU’s international college so that he could start his business and marketing course. However, it didn’t take long for Ralph’s eyes to focus back on football at the freshers fair. 

He got invited to the university’s football trials and made DMU’s fourth team, a developmental squad that wasn’t a part of any leagues. He spent two years there but he never got the opportunity to prove himself at a higher level. 

Ralph (middle) playing football for a local Leicester side

However, an opportunity would arise in his third year for a different sport that was similar but he had never even heard of before moving to the UK. Futsal. 

He was made aware of it because of his flatmate who played futsal for DMU and Ralph would sometimes go along to his training as well as some matches. The most memorable match he went to was varsity, where he was in awe of how loud the crowd was.

Futsal had captured him. Ralph went to the freshers' fair but this time it was to take on this new challenge of futsal .The players there convinced him to come and play for them and give up university football, and that’s exactly what Ralph did. 

Even though Ralph knew nothing about futsal his performances across the year would lead DMU to a respectable third place finish in the league table. He even picked up an award for his performances for the second team, the Players Player of the Year.

However, there was one game that Ralph had his eyes on for a very long time. Varsity. 

The training in the lead up was tough and it was even tougher when he learned about the conflict happening in the Middle East. His parents back home caught in the crossfire of the missiles and drones that flew overhead. 

It remained in the back of his mind whilst doing anything, but the only thing that Ralph could do was simply, “trust in God.”

For the first time in the season, the match was being streamed live on YouTube. It would be the first time that his parents back home would be able to see Ralph play futsal. 

With a smile on his face he led his side out onto the court to a roar from both sets of crowds. He was determined to show everyone that was watching what his side could do. 

Unfortunately, the second team would lose on the night but Ralph knew he had performed well and that was all that mattered to him. He knew that even as the night drew closer in Kuwait and a faint hum of aircraft sounded from above, his parents would be proud of him. 

Even with his new found love for Futsal, Ralph still plans to try and make it as a professional footballer and even has trials lined up with some European teams in the summer. He still aims to be at a football club in the UK but there could be potential for him to move into futsal at some point. 

For Ralph Ferrao, it wasn’t the impact he had on people in the UK or Leicester that matters most to him, it’s the impact he had on the people back home. Even in the darkest of times, the light of his parents phone in the living room in Kuwait is enough to drown out the loudest of missiles.