(Mis)adventures in Latin American Futbal. (Long) (788 hits)
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Submitted by That Is My Stapler (View user info) at 2005-08-11 13:37:39 EDT
[True Story. This is my first and probably last sport post, so I hope it's worthy]
When I was a boy of 16 years old I dropped out of high school and moved to a town called Tepic, which is the capital city of the state of Nayarit. For those of you who don't know, that is about midway down on the western side of Mexico, in a volcanic moutain range, almost smack dab in between Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara.
You can find it here:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://mexico.america-atlas.com/pictures/mexico-map.jpg&imgrefurl=http://mexico.america-atlas.com/&h=930&w=1196&sz=307&tbnid=m57C1Uoxli4J:&tbnh=116&tbnw=150&hl=en&start=7&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmap%2Bof%2BMexico%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D
It was the time of my life. I was still young, energetic, and relativly unscathed by the pressures of modern life. For a time, I had a job in an Auto-Body repair shop, (where I was taught the finer Spanish/Mexican swear-words, you pinche joto) and had my own little airy house on the beach (where I slept in a hammock on an upper, outside loft). I also had a whole bunch of very curious and very cute little Senorita's, a decent surfboard, and not a care in the world. There were only two seasons, the dry and the rainy, and the rainy was only slightly unpleasant in that when it would stop for a few days, a lot of stagnation occured which brought out the mesquitos, diseases, and what have you.
Aside from that, and the constant shits, those were the days. I'm very nostalgic for those times because, as I said, I was still unscathed by modern life. Also, high school had not been a pleasant experience for me, and I was happy to be on my own, no family, no "peers," no teachers, none of the bullshit that is the American Childhood Inquisition.
I was a true novelty. People outside of Guadalajara (for business) and Puerto Vallarta (for tourism) just never saw white people. They only thought of America as this HUGE super-power, and *ME* (pffft!) as it's representative.
(Note to all peoples outside the United States; please NEVER consider me a representative of America...or...for that matter, the human race. That would be a sad, grave mistake).
I was the center of attention, and for a 16 year old, vain, zit-popping, peener-pulling punk, that was pretty damned cool.
I made a lot of friends with the locals, some of whom to this day I am still in touch with. It was a very conservative lot, and formalities had to be followed in the rites of courtship, marriage, family, social hierarchy, and so forth.
Until you broke out a soccer ball.
Then it was Katy Bar The Door, All Bets Off, Play to Win or Die. Period. End of story. Once you hit the beach with a soccer ball, you were on your own, and if you were no good, tough shit.
I was no good.
In my defense, I grew up in the United States, and Soccer, (ok ok ok, damn you Europeans, Football) was just not a sport of much interest. People played it, but it wasn't one of the big three, Baseball, Basketball or (Our) Football.
I personally had NEVER played it.
I was in awe of these guys. To me, they were like Gods. They could do things to that ball with their feet that I STILL think back on and go "whooaaaaa." To them, I was a laughable piece of fecal matter on the field. I now know that as good as those guys were, they were but mere amatures having a day out at the beach. No matter, I was immensly impressed and determined to hang in there, learn, and earn my respect.
Ah, the folly of youth.
While I am not a wimpy guy, I'm pretty tall. SOME of us tall people have a slight problem with, well, coordination. Since it runs in my family ANYWAY, the only sports I've ever been any decent at are running, walking, and jogging, and I'll still trip up on one of my gangly ass legs, feet or even arms and wind up like a pretzel in a ditch, whimpering like an infant in need of a diaper change.
Still, I would not be deterred, and continued to play, get beat, play, get beat, play, get beat, play, get beat, on and on and on and on, over and over.
Finally even I realized I would NEVER have the footwork skills, coordination, nor love of the game that these young men had and I was only fooling myself. By that time, however, I had become part of the culture of their games, and though not respected as a player, I was respected for my tenacity and desire to play, and was always invited to a new game. They would call me up on those ancient telephones and say;
"Yayson! Vamos a la playa, Cabron!" and hang up before I could say a word.
That meant we were playing football.
Soccer (Football!) is a rough sport. Anybody who tells you otherwise is full of shit. Being young and macho, I never once compained about a knee to the groin, a kick in the shin, an elbow to the eye. It was part of it.
But I eventually had my last straw. The game finally brought me to my knees, demanding I suck its big, brown, hairy Mexican cock. After that game I (literally) crawled off the playing field, never to return.
I was (oddly) playing goalie that day. I don't remember why. We were short of people, or somebody was sick, or something. Anyway it was a new position for me and one I was not prepared for, at all.
Right off the bat, at the beginning of the game I took a ball directly on the nose, a full kick from a Monster of a Mexican running at me top-speed about three feet away. While I was amazed at the sparkling in my eyes and the ringning in my ears, amazed that I had somehow blocked that goal, and grateful to the guys who pulled me off the ground with a slap on the back and whoops of laughter, I was DOUBLY amazed at the amount of blood gushing from my broken nose.
I skated it off.
After stuffing gauze up my nostrils, I was back, and ready for more, though I was very gun-shy at that point.
I blocked one more goal without incident, amazingly. Then I had a bad streak and missed three, mostly from being a tall dorky white guy, in excruciating pain. The boys were not happy.
Determined I tried to pull myself together. I was grateful for a lot of action at the other end of the field for a while. I cringed when they started coming my way again. I wanted to flee. I wanted my mommy.
Sure enough, I should have listened to the voices in my head (it seemed like there were a lot of them) that screamed;
"RUN! RUN! RUN LIKE THE COWARD YOU ARE!!!!!"
But I held ground, followed the action, knees bent, eye on the ball. Again, MonsterMexican was in control of the ball, and was coming at me like a....well like a MonsterMexican. Again from three feet away, he power kicked the ball at my head. I was more guarded this time and turned my head and flailed my arms in the air like a chicken with its head cut off. I felt the ball hit me on the left ear dead on and felt a "pop" inside my head.
Suddenly everything went lopsided in my vision and I began lurching about with no sense of direction and nearly blind from the pain in my nose, my ears, and the fucked up sense of balance.
Keeping this in mind, I crashed head on into about 4 different guys, and broke my arm bouncing off the corner of the goal cage.
Mexicans can be a pitiless lot, and everybody stood around me, trying not to laugh.
I screamed that I was done, that we were no longer friends, that I hated their cursed sport, country, language, skin color, wives, mothers, children, uncles, food, customs, culture and that I was going home.
I quit literally crawled off the field, got a taxi and had him take me to the hospital where my cousin worked. She looked me over, patched me up, put me in a bed for a week and suggested I refrain from future soccer matches.
I don't even watch it on T.V. anymore, you hooligans. No, I prefer a nice relaxing game of Curling. I still have a balance problem, and the older I get, the stiffer my elbow gets, (while, sadly, the limper my peener gets).
-Fin-
User Reviews
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2005-12-12 11:01:05 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Do you see what happens?
Submitted by Chroniclysm (user info) at 2005-08-12 11:44:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I swore off the idea of being a goalie at about 5 when I got kicked in the head trying to dive for a loose ball in the box.
Submitted by SPLR (user info) at 2005-08-12 04:25:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by BillsSBChamps (user info) at 2005-08-12 01:22:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I just had an extreme case of deja vu.
Take this fucking +2 and shove it straight up your ass, it may be the only one you ever see from me.
I'm out of here for the night.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2005-08-11 16:57:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Goalie's a tough position. I played all through high school, now ten years later I'm playing agin. I don't remember the ground being so hard.
Submitted by Jeanneee (user info) at 2005-08-11 14:50:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
OK, so maybe that was a little unfair. I tend to get a little carried away with the hyperbole sometimes. I'm not big on soccer though.
Submitted by PokeyPecker (user info) at 2005-08-11 14:33:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Jeanneee (user info) at 2005-08-11 14:07:38 (#)
Ranking: 2
Soccer is for effeminate Socialists.
===========================================
Do you really believe that Jeanneee???
Say it ain't so, Joe, say it ain't SO.
Submitted by Jeanneee (user info) at 2005-08-11 14:07:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Soccer is for effeminate Socialists.
Submitted by DCWoody (user info) at 2005-08-11 13:56:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Football = +2.
If you're tall you can always be the target for set pieces.
Submitted by MandaPanda (user info) at 2005-08-11 13:40:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Ouch.