Street Football's major event of the year has just taken place in Qingdao China for the 2nd year running. The 2025 3X3 Street Football World Cup was as Edward Van Gils said himself "The Strongest Street Football Tournament Ever". Containing only the All-Stars of the sport, and no one else. If you're somebody in Street Football then you were there.

‍

WHO REPRESENTED AUSTRALIA

For those in the Australian Street Football scene, you would know that we have a ranking system, and as the leading crew in the rankings Sydney Street Crew were asked to take up the opportunity. Street Football Australia was represented by: Tomislav Bazdaric, Bonfils Rugaruza, Asher Rahimi, Serkan Seven.

‍

LET'S TALK RESULTS

Let's get straight to it. Australia was drawn into one of the strongest groups of the tournament. Containing Netherlands (the founders of the sport, containing Edward Van Gils and his Iconic Street Kings), Denmark (the massively successful PannaHouse collective), the USA (Jayzinho; the Volta Street Football Icon and two MASL Pro's), and Australia (Sydney Street Crew). So yeah, stacked group, but we wouldn't have it any other way. Match 1 we played against Netherlands, pulling out a shocking 2-1 Victory, meaning as Sydney Street Crew and by extension Australia, we beat the global powerhouse and 2024 World Cup winners Street Kings. For context, this tournament was also a farewell to Edward Van Gils and a thank you to him for being instrumental in growing Street Football over the past 30 years, Australia was not expected to win that match. Match 2 we played Denmark (pannaHouse), narrowly losing 5-4. Even though it was a loss, Street Football Australia proved that it could fight until the end no matter who the opposition is. Match 3 against the USA was a must win match in order to make it through to the next round. A very efficient 1-0 victory was the result, defending the entire match, taking our only clear opportunity when it popped up was enough to take us through as 2nd in our group and to the quarter finals of the World Cup.

‍

Quarter finals was an extremely tight affair, with Australia holding a 2-1 lead with less than a minute to go, which was unfortunately not enough as China fought back to level the match to take it to overtime. In 3X3 Street Football, overtime is a golden goal 1v1 showdown, which China managed to edge us out in, knocking us out of the World Cup. China then won their semi final against Germany 4-0, and won the final 2-1 against Spain. Australia was the only team at the end of regulation time to not be behind China on the scorecard, as they won every single other match they played in regulation time. This shows us that Australia has strong potential moving forward. I'm not saying that if we beat China that we would have won the rest of our matches because China did, that's a ridiculous belief to hold, but what it does show is that we aren't as far off the top as we thought coming into this World Cup, and now other countries know it too, we won't be written off before a tournament starts ever again.

‍

WHAT'S NEXT

We work on what held us back from winning. While we did surprise ourselves and others with our run at the tournament, through playing in these matches and watching them back, it's very evident that our attacking play and opportunity creation needs a ton of work. Sitting back and waiting for one or two chances a match only works once, these teams will have a solution for this next time around, so we need to improve and have a better plan and execution next World Cup. The way we do this is by hosting greater and more 3X3 events in Australia. 2026 will be the year 3X3 blows up in our country, we'll make sure of that. Join our telegram server or check this site regularly for our once a month 3X3 tournaments, and be a part of Street Football's rise in Australia.