ABSTRACT
This chapter follows the lives and career trajectories of Joaquim, Miguel, Roberto, Antônio, and Denis to give an account of the diversity of sports migrants’ trajectories in the “Central” and “Eastern” European regions. This chapter conceptualizes futsal and football as an ethnographic continuum. Football and futsal players participate in similar processes of early professionalization. However, at 16 or 17, athletes decide whether to become football or futsal professionals, seeking a specialization. Once a player specializes in football or futsal, various salary expectations and migration routes appear. This chapter also analyzes the role that borders, families, injuries, and emotions play in the lives of sports migrants. The current chapter presents a diversified narrative of contemporary sports migration movements.
