Brisbane, Australia
CNN
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Half-time and thousands of tiny cellphone lights are swaying in time to Coldplay’s “A Sky Full of Stars” on a mild winter night at Brisbane Stadium for Australia’s World Cup match against Nigeria.
Sitting across two rows, not far from the pitch, are players from the exiled Afghan women’s national team, who know what it’s like to represent their country and dream of doing so again – if only they were recognized as a national team by the sport’s governing bodies.
Khalida Popal, the team’s founder, flew in from Denmark to meet the players, who now live in Australia after fleeing the threat of death by the Taliban on an Australian military…