Street Soccer

As we were leaving the informal settlement called Khayelitsha, we saw a group of late teenagers playing soccer, or football. They were playing in the middle of the narrow street with little cartons for goals that couldn’t have been more than two feet tall and two feet wide. We wanted to play with them and they were eager to play with us so we joined in. At first, it was four on four. A lot of the parents were saying how we were going to get schooled and there was no chance that we would be able to hang with them. Right from the start we showed that we too had skill and I noticed that they were a little bit surprised. We had attracted quite a crowd and they were watching and cheering. The poor quality of the street became even more obvious to us when the ball would get stuck in the mud or water would splash up on to us. Both teams were building attacks and taking good shots, until finally, we scored. We started cheering and I could tell that the other team was surprised. There was a group of young kids cheering “U S A! U S A!” After the goal they wanted to play five on five, so we added another player. They got the ball and immediately started coming towards our goal. We kept playing good defense for about five minutes until they finally broke through and scored on us. They cheered and the people on the side of the street clapped. We kept playing and we still had our loyal cheerleaders on the side chanting “U S A!” After a couple more minutes we were told that we had to go and no one wanted to end the game. We wanted to keep playing and so did the locals because they wanted a winner and a loser. They were asking when we would come back and play with them again, and it was a good feeling. To see all their faces and the kids still chanting, this gave me a very special feeling. For me, this was one of the best experiences of the trip.