Posts tagged ‘football’
EL Salvador, a country devoted to Football
After the first days in EL Salvador it looked like if I had never left Spain. Every single newspaper I read, there were FC Barcelona or Real Madrid at the front page. I did not know at all the fever salvadoran people had about football and especially about Spanish soccer. Wherever you look to, you can see Barça´s or Real Madrid´s colours and emblems: in every mean of transport, t-shirts, houses, boats…
Wherever I say I am from Spain, people ask me, before I can say a word, which team I support. I always answer the same. Ni Barça ni Madrid, Athletic de Bilbao! And some of them have started to change team. Here is the biggest supporter, Ever!
And this fever gets to the point that if Real Madrid and Barcelona play together people stop working and go to see the match. And this rivalry between these two teams has become dangerous. Tension is very high among supporters and quite often there are fights and quarrels that end badly. This is why police presence is reinforced whenever they play together. It is very strange to see them behave this way for something happening thousand of miles away from this small country.
However, there is a time when these two supporters come together forgetting any differences. It is when “La Selecta”, the national team. plays. This is definitely one of the biggest moment for Salvadorans. The country stops and the blue and white paints the country.
By the time La Selecta was playing the qualification round for the world cup against Costa Rica I was collaborating with Fundación Campo, a very special MFI. Its management has achieved to share with their employees strong values and they have established a true reliance relationship with their employees. One of the many activities they do to reinforce teamwork is going to San Salvador to support La Selecta.
As one more member of the team I went with them to support the national team against Costa Rica. The winner of the match would be classified to the World cup. After a 3 hours journey we arrived to San Salvador and we straightly entered to the stadium in order to take a good seat.
When I asked about the starting time of the match I got astonished. There were 4 hours and a half left, it was starting at 19:30! Soon I understood why we did this. First, two hours before the match began, the stadium was nearly full. And second because it was vibrant to warm up the match with the supporters. In the 4 hours and a half waiting, they did not stop singing, dancing, doing the wave and many more. It was an extraordinary experience seeing the unconditional support of the fans.
Unfortunately La Selecta was not at the same level as its fans and it was beaten by Costa Rica, losing any chance to qualify for the world cup. But as H. W. Arnold said, “ the worst defeat a person can have is when he loses his enthusiasm”. And this never happens to Salvadoran people. They are passionated people that get up again and again despite the difficulties they meet on the way. Sharing this experience with my colleages of Fundación Campo made me understand them better and consolidate myself as a member of their team.
As good Salvadorans, on the way back to San Miguel we started to dream again about seeing La Selecta playing a world cup…
Scoring goals and helping construct a global community from Peru
Icaro Rebolledo |KF18 | Peru
Whether it is the Greek/Egyptian elections, Rio +20 meeting or the 2012 Eurocup (c’mon England!)…all the people involved have something to learn from our local Father’s Day football tournament here in Chiclayo- Northern Peru. Yes, we won the tournament!… and how great it feels to be the champions (and score plenty of goals!). Yet, the real enjoyment happened when everyone came together to share the prize (a few too many bottles of beer); if you saw the dancing you would certainly understand! It is crucial for as many people as possible to be able to enjoy the benefits of individual success in order to create a sense of community and strive towards a common goal; political, environmental or any other (more…)
This Sporting Life
Michael Slattery | KF17 | Togo
Football: what more needs to be said?
For the past number of weeks I’ve been training with my microfinance institution’s football club, WAGES FC. Early on in my stay, I found out that most of the male loan officers I was spending my days with were members of the team. This didn’t surprise me after a certain point: the MFI was interested in placing me with their best agents. Well-rounded people are generally active in various areas of their lives, and this includes sports. When I expressed some interest in the team, I was invited out to train with them, for fun, as they said, at 6:30 am, every Saturday.
Micro-football Fever
Football fever is spreading fast in Lebanon as the World Cup approaches. The excitement and impact can be found among the country’s microenterprises. Two of Lebanon’s leading microfinance institutions and Kiva partners, Al Majmoua and Ameen s.a.l., caught a bit of football fever by playing a friendly match against one another.
One Month to the World Cup
Is football, shall I say soccer, still not big in America? In the countries where I was born or spent most of my adulthood it certainly is. And so it is in Mozambique, where I am based for my Kiva Fellowship at the moment. Mozambique is the country where Kiva operates that is closest to South Africa. Four weeks from today -by the way: today I am seeing my 28th spring feliz cumpleaños to me 😉 -, the Football World Cup will start in South Africa and many friends and lenders have asked me whether this will make any difference to entrepreneurs in Mozambique. The answer is clearly YES.
Kiva Stories from the Field 