In Vancouver, during the opening week of the 2026 edition of FIFA’s global football showpiece, Nestory Irankunda became the youngest player to score for Australia at a World Cup.The 20-year-old celebrated the effort in the 2-0 victory against Turkiye by punching the corner flag, his tribute to Australian great Tim Cahill.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listThe celebration did not show what came before it: a refugee camp in Kigoma, Tanzania, where Irankunda was born after his parents fled Burundi’s civil war. Two of his teammates carry a version of that same story onto the same pitch.Across the largest World Cup staged with 48 nations, hosted by Canada, Mexico and the United States, at least nine players carry a refugee or displacement story. Together with others, they were brought together last month by the UN refugee agency under a campaign called the Gamechanging Team.The UNHCR says 117 million people are displaced worldwide, including almost 49 million children.UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Barham Salih, called this World Cup “an ideal moment… to send a message of hope to fans all over the world,” in the same May statement that announced the Gamechanging Team.For the players who share painfully similar pasts, that message plays out across more than a hundred matches this summer, in front of the largest audience football has ever drawn.Here are those nine of the players who …
