World Cup 2014 Brings Soccer Memories

        So, are you enjoying the World Cup 2014? The Cup has really become a giant in the Sports Mania that occupies so much of our Global pleasures. During the last part of our homestead decade, when we were deeply involved with a reality check about our future, our young son decided he wanted to play soccer. We had zero knowledge of the game and no resources in our rural area for implementing the game. But undeterred, our son put out a call to the community that anyone interested in playing soccer should meet at one of the school fields. We thought a couple of kids would show up, he would find another game to thrill him and we could all sit back and wait for soccer to come to our American sensibilities. 

Tagline in newspaper read "Guy Ellis shows form in 5-day soccer camp.

        Then one day, before the designated date, the phone began to ring, parents asking us more about the meeting that our 9-year-old had arranged. Will there be teams?  Who are the coaches? Is there a handbook of rules available for parents? What?! We were suddenly frustrated with an additional agenda item to our daily dilemmas. We, the parents were useless. It seemed as if thousands of kids and parents showed up at this “pick-up” soccer game. While adults struggled with what-are-we-doing-here, the kids organized three or four teams, cardboard boxes at each end of the field as goals, and began to race the ball back and forth across the playground.

       The kids loved the freedom to play, but lacked future organization. The success was the recognition that international “football” was indeed in America’s future. A summer youth program received a grant to bring in two professional soccer players from Belize to teach our little cubs. As it turned out, one of the Belize coaches was called to another awakening community while at that time a friend from Sweden was visiting us who happened to be a professional player in Sweden. He volunteered to spend the week with these eager children to teach this very popular world game. What a time. What a great time.

       Off sides is a common piece of soccer language, which makes me think, sadly of the other popular global occupation – war – what’s it good for, nothing. Somewhere youngsters like our son were thinking of their own interesting thing to do – tell stories through film. Guy Nattiv and Erez Tadmor are top film makers that you may have never heard of. They produced a short film (5+minutes) titled Off Sides, that you can view  on You Tube, (www.youtube.com, type - short film, Off Sides). It will take your breath away.

Thanks for stopping. Cherish our human goodness.

Love, Helene