Sixteen homeless men from Calgary and Toronto arrived in Winnipeg Saturday to compete for eight berths on Canada's International Homeless World Cup (HWC) team.

The HWC, founded in 2001 during the International Network of Street Papers Conference in Cape Town, South Africa, is an annual street soccer competition that brings together homeless soccer players from around the world.

Sponsored and supported by Nike, UEFA and The United Nations, street soccer is also has the support of world-class football clubs: Manchester United gives support to England's team and Real Madrid has links with Spain's team.

For Canada's homeless hopefuls, the tryout in Winnipeg can help do more than win them a spot on Canada's HWC team: it's also a chance to help turn their lives around.

"It's not a joke -- it's not," Mike Morgan of Team Calgary told CTV News at the tryouts in Winnipeg on Saturday. "As you can see, we're working our butts off here."

Team Calgary Coach Kevin Scullion agreed that the players had been working hard.

"You should have seen my guys a couple weeks ago," said Scullion. "Big John lived under a bridge -- he looked like someone from Survivor; he had the big beard, the tie-died shirt."

Just like the pros, they make sure their running shoes are tied up tight and gulp a lot of sports drinks. The difference is, they're homeless.

Scullion used to toss these men a dollar or two as he walked by, and decided to take it farther. Now he's investing his time and getting a chance to watch his players transform.

"You know, we're not dumpster divers," Morgan said. "We just have people who had bad breaks."

Angelo Variano of Team Ontario, 41, has seen four years of bad breaks. The former landscaper developed an addiction to crack cocaine that left him homeless in downtown Toronto.

"I've lost my family's respect," he said. "A lot of years of work that I won't get back -- and a lot of friends."

Variano's a street soccer veteran: he played on Team Canada at last year's HWC in Edinburgh, Scotland.

"If I didn't go last year I wouldn't be doing this, this year -- I'd be drifting around," he said. "Now there's something I turn back to and say 'OK, soccer Monday.' "

Organizers say that the goal of recruiting people for street soccer isn't just to get them off the street long enough to play a game. Their participation helps them regain a sense of empowerment -- something most of these players haven't felt in a long time.

"There are kids asking for their autographs," Scullion said proudly. "They come onto pitches with 15,000 people, maybe 30,000 (watching) throughout the week,  and they're heroes -- not homeless."

Street soccer is growing and is highly competitive. The 2006 Homeless World Cup in Cape Town, being held from Sept. 20 to Sept. 23, will host almost 500 players from 48 countries.

Canada's team has raised $5,000 to get to this year's competition, but needs at least another $15,000 to $20,000 to cover expenses.  

From a report by CTV's Stacey Ashley