Barcelona football club ‘dream come true’ for Syrian refugee

A DISABLED Syrian refugee has told of how Barcelona FC made her “dream come true”.

Eighteen-year-old Nujeen Mustafa, who has cerebal palsy, was invited to a Barca game earlier this month, where she met players including her idol, Lionel Messi.

The club organised the trip after hearing about the wheelchair-bound youngster’s story, which involved a 3,500 mile journey from her hometown of Aleppo to Cologne with her sister.

Nujeen – who has a new book out and speaks four languages – has become a symbol of the United Nations refugee agency.

“A dream of mine has come true” she wrote on Twitter.

“I have learned that the real joy is to give not to take.

“Hopefully I’ll make someone as happy as FC Barcelona has made me.”

Dreams of a young Syrian refugee girl with cerebral palsy finally come true. Nujeen Mustafa met with her heroes – the superstar footballers from FC Barcelona pic.twitter.com/MjyqZlYPRP

— TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow) December 16, 2017

Speaking at a trip to see the club play Celta Vigo, she told Reuters: “Messi has a kind of a baby face, he looks younger even though he’s 30, so it’s like ‘you have grown up now’ because I know him since 2007.”

“At that time he looked like a baby,” she added, before addressing the five-time world player of the year: “You have changed, you look like an adult now.”

Mustafa says she dreams of becoming a physicist or astronaut in the future and to meet the Queen of England.

Barcelona have involved themselves with outreach projects to underprivileged groups and last year organised for an Afhgan boy who wore a ‘plastic bag Messi shirt’ to meet the Argentinian forward.