Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Outcasts United, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Refugees, Discrimination, and Resilience
Community and Teamwork vs. Division
Leadership and Respect
Discipline, Dedication, and Success
Summary
Analysis
On a cool spring afternoon on a soccer field in Clarkston, Georgia, two teams of teenage boys are warming up. When a squadron of fighter jets passes by overhead on its way to Atlanta, the boys stop and look up. One team, from the North Atlanta Soccer Association, looks up at the planes in awe. The other team, a group of refugees on a team called the Fugees, flinch as they watch the planes. Many of them saw fighter jets in action in their home countries and watched bombs take out their neighborhoods.
Opening the book with this key difference in the teams highlights the additional struggle that the Fugees have faced in their lives, having experienced the effects of these fighter jets in action. Yet at the same time, it also highlights their strength: the fact that they had been able to escape this hardship and have now ended up safely in Georgia.
Themes
From the sidelines, thirty-one-year-old Luma al-Mufleh, the coach of the Fugees, tells them to concentrate, emphasizing that they need to take more accurate shots in order to score. The boys gather around her. On the other side of the field, about forty parents are there to watch the boys play. None came to support the Fugees, as many are from single parent homes and need to look after other children or work, and few have cars to travel.
The initial description of Luma also highlights her key values: she emphasizes discipline, trying to make sure that the Fugees don’t take wild shots. St. John also mentions other discrepancies between the Fugees and the other players, noting the additional hardships the players and their families face.
Themes
A few minutes later, the whistle sounds to begin the game. Luma sits silently, allowing the boys to play for themselves. The other coach, however, shouts at the field, jumping up and down as the action unfolds. North Atlanta scores first and Luma continues to quietly pace. But a few moments later, Christian Jackson of the Fugees breaks forward and scores. Luma doesn’t react.
St. John introduces Luma’s leadership style: she wants to lead the boys to success, but she also does so by giving them a degree of freedom. She wants them to be able to play for themselves, and this freedom prompts the boys to have more respect for her and value the moments in which she does coach them.
Themes
The North Atlanta coach continues to shout, while Luma continues to pace, watching many of the Fugees’ shots sail over the goal. At halftime, the Fugees lead 3-1, but Luma isn’t happy that they’ve made very few of the shots that they’ve taken. She tells the team that she wants the other team’s coach to sit down and be quiet—that’s when they will know that they’ve truly won.
Even though the Fugees are winning, Luma’s disappointment in their performance provides an example of her priorities. She wants her players to work hard and be disciplined, because that, to her, is a measure of their success as a team.
Themes
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In the second half, the Fugees quickly score three goals: one from a Sudanese boy named Attak and two others from Christian. The Fugees continue to shoot; the other team starts to “[hack] away at the Fugees’ shins and ankles,” but the Fugees refuse to retaliate. At 8-2, the North Atlanta coach sits down. The boys try to hide their smiles. The game ends at 9-2. The teams shake hands, and the referee approaches the Fugees. He commends them on their sportsmanship and compliments them on “one of the most beautiful games of soccer” he’d ever seen.
The Fugees are able to prove their desire to be disciplined: first, they are inspired by Luma and take her instruction, maintaining the accuracy that they lacked in the first half. Additionally, they maintain their own sense of composure in the face of the other team, who have become desperate. This is the model that Luma tries to attain each time the Fugees take the field.
Themes
This is the first time that St. John sees the Fugees play. He knows little about the team other than that the boys are refugees, and that the team is coached by a woman. He soon learns that Clarkston had become one of the most diverse communities in America in little more than a decade. He notices a “sense of trust and friendship between the players and their coach,” but there is also “tension and long silences.”
Even when first being introduced to the Fugees, St. John picks up on two key aspects of what makes the team so special: first, the fact that these boys are able to come together and play despite their past hardships. Second, Luma’s dedication to the boys and their respect, in turn. Of course, these two aspects of the team bring challenges, and the book goes on to explore some of the difficulties that the boys have as refugees in the town, and their difficulty with some of Luma’s leadership style.
Themes
St. John realizes in hindsight that the team is very fragile, even at this moment. The Fugees have no home field. The players are struggling to stay afloat, having fled violence in their home countries only to find a place with a completely different set of values and customs. Luma is also struggling to help them as much as she can. But more than anything, it is the “surprising friendship of these kids from different cultures, religions, and backgrounds” that amazes St. John.
St. John then elaborates on some of the team’s struggles, like the discrimination they are facing from the town, which is preventing them from obtaining a home field to play on. But St. John also notes the things that enrich the team, like the community they’ve been able to build together despite their differences.
Themes
One player on the Fugees is not quite as good as his teammates: a tiny boy from Afghanistan named Zubaid, who may be farsighted. He often misses the ball when he tries to kick it. Luma proudly explains to St. John that Zubaid had never missed a practice or tutoring session that Luma ran—he is on the field because he deserves to be. His teammates always cover for him, but at one point in the game against North Atlanta, Zubaid was able to intercept the ball from an opposing player and pass it to a teammate. At the next lull in action, the other Fugees cheered him on as though he had scored the winning goal.
St. John provides an anecdote proving the small miracles that the team creates for the boys. St. John demonstrates how Luma rewards boys like Zubaid, who work hard in all aspects of their lives and dedicate themselves to the team—even if it means that the team might have a weak link on the soccer field. Despite Zubaid’s difficulty on the field, the boys still support him, and are sure to lift him up whenever he finds success. This kind of community and team is far more worthwhile for Luma than one that simply rewards talent.
Themes
