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designated players
all the places we’ve been
The East Coast had a head start. Reading about the team arriving in Cary while sipping fresh from the garden coffee in Costa Rica, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, I was two hours late. At some point while I slept the US MNT clocked in to work after more than three years of preparation. And I’m on vacation. Come to think of it, it’s all been a vacation, from my first qualifying game in Connecticut last fall, when a sandblaster could not have removed my smile, to what will most definitely be a larger and wider smile no matter what happens in June (and maybe July).
My porch in Costa Rica overlooks the Pacific Ocean and three monkeys nibbling on the branches, but I’m reading about soccer practice. Not a game, practice. Allen Iverson would be proud. The last few days have taken me from the ocean to the continental divide and back, the Northwest coast of Guanacaste to the famous cloud forests of Monteverde. From sea level to 4500 feet, four hours of beating a Toyota Landcruiser into evil roads, winding eroded and rocky, left a cultural documentary in our wake. Small town after small town, the simple and natural beauty of Costa Rica shined through the unending smiles on every face we passed. Describing each town, Jose, our translator, pointed out the church, the market, and the large haciendas. “And here, of course, is a soccer field,” he said, town after town.
Jose knows the importance of coffee to his country
Of course a soccer field. These are not words I would hear in America. I instantly realize there is still nothing granted about soccer in the US. There is much work to be done. A beautiful landscape, a beautiful people, and a beautiful game - that is all I want. Simple Pleasures will be the only souvenirs I need to take from Central America, carrying them with the trinkets, refreshed, revived, and ready to begin climbing again. Gil Scott-Heron rings out from my computer speakers, “And since their lives got me to the middle of a mountain, well, I can’t stop and give up on them. Because their lives do shine on and inspire me to climb on from all of the places we’ve been.”
the minister of information
Sam
on May 15th, 2006 - 6:19pm
I just returned from a trip to Costa Rica, it was amazing, we stayed ina small Villa outside of Arenal. My father is still looking into buying some property down there, including a bar.. directly across the street from a soccer field.
I also though it was amazing how no matter what town we passed through there was a soccer field. We hiked the volcano(can;t remember name, but i know it wasn’t Poas, and even at the last house i saw there where stick nailed to gather making goals on a 40 to 50m soccer field.
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