Karim kicks a football in a rectangle of earth a few kilometres away from the highway on the edge of Rome. He comes from Ghazni, a city in Afghanistan that was destroyed by US firepower. He has no house and no job, and lives in a welcoming centre in Rome.
At this training session, he seems desperate to impress, stealing the ball in midfield, dribbling elegantly past an opponent and delivering a long pass to Mamadi, a 19-year-old from Guinea.
Like Karim, Mamadi has been unable to find a job and passes a significant part of his week waiting at police headquarters in Rome in the hope of obtaining a permit of stay. He centres the ball to his teammate Ismaila, who frees himself from the defence and slots the ball into the net. Ismaila comes from Togo, and the authorities have just rejected his first request for asylum.
From the rickety stands behind the bench, someone applauds Ismaila's goal while the players congratulate each other. Ismaila, Karim and Mamadi play for Liberi Nantes, who this year will compete in the third division of Italy's semi-professional lower league. That is where the similarity with others in the league ends, however.
Ismaila, Karim and Mamadi are not their real names, and Liberi Nantes is no ordinary team. The 25-man squad is made up of players from the world's trouble spots - Afghanistan, Eritrea, Guinea, Iraq, Nigeria, Sudan, Togo and the Democratic Republic of Congo - and all are refugees.
These players will never have their real names and pictures on trading cards because the authorities in their home countries believe they are dead - and if they knew the truth, their families would be in grave danger. And because their asylum claims are in doubt, they cannot be registered and get a contract. Most of them are recent arrivals, live in welcoming centres for refugees and are dependent on the welfare services that Rome provides.