Soner Cuger

For Emir and his friends—Hasan, Sadık, and Mert—who grew up in Ziyankâr, a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Istanbul, life feels like a game they’ve lost before it even began. Trapped between poverty, violence, and despair, these four young men see soccer as their only chance to change their fate. They try to break free from this darkness through their friendship and their dreams.

A woman watches out the window of in the house. The excitement that she had when her husband's knock the door shows us that days end would be different than other days.

For Emir and his friends—Hasan, Sadık, and Mert—who grew up in Ziyankâr, a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Istanbul, life feels like a game they’ve lost before it even began. Trapped between poverty, violence, and despair, these four young men see soccer as their only chance to change their fate. They try to break free from this darkness through their friendship and their dreams.