Friday I had my first training session with the San Lorenzo women's club team. Dario is this guy who works here in Buenos Aires and helped my parents plan their stay in BA as well as connect me with a team to play with. He picked me up from my house in Belgrano and drove me to the stadium. If I were to take the colectivo (bus) to the stadium it would take me around an hour and then I would have to take another mini van/bus to take me directly to the stadium. He warned me that the stadium is not in a nice area of town and that it is extremely dangerous. This is why he insisted that I ride the colectivo with one of the players, Flo. To bad for me Flo does not speak ingles.
About half an hour into our ride the scenery changed significantly. I'm not gonna say that I was scared by the neighborhood, but its not the kind of place that they recommend tourists visit. You know those movies or documentaries where rich people slowly drive into the poor neighborhoods of Africa or India and they start crying because its so horrible and shocking to them and they feel so bad that they are so privileged and these people are eating out of trash. Yeah, I kind of had a moment like that expect i wasn't shocked. I'm not naive, I know there are places like San Lorenzo all over the world and I've seen them in other countries. I was glad I got to see it thought. I would compare Belgrano to Bethesda, Maryland and San Lorenzo to the southeast section of DC, just to give you a picture of the disparity between the two barrios. Trash was everywhere, stray dogs were eating out of the garbage, and people were selling random useless things in the street. I'm glad I saw it. I don't wanna be sheltered, I want to see the good and the bad of a place/country when I visit. Dario also said almost every stadium in Argentina is surrounded by the same kind of neighborhood. It makes sense. anyways....
On the way to the estadio, Dario told me a few things about the team.
1. They come from lower class families so don't wear anything flashy like jewlery, watches, or lots of flashy gear. Got it: no jewels!
2. The soccer for women here is in no comparison to the soccer in the states. After I told him I haven't touched a ball in awhile nor have a run in the past three weeks, he reassured me that I would still be better than some of the girls.
3. Don't show off. Don't try to nut-meg them or make them look foolish. You might get an elbow to the eye. (It's funny because during practice the team was rehearsing a corner kick and I saw the coach talking to the players about marking and holding shirts in a way that ref's can't see. Then I saw a few players make gestures that suggested if they had to they would gladly through a few elbows or clothes-lines if they had to. I was just glad I wasn't in the play). I guess I'll have to save my rainbow/maradona,/scissors move for pick up.
4. The facilities are no way near the kind of facilities I'm probably use to. Pot holes, check!--- Well honestly, when I got there the place was really nice, they had at lest 5 different fields and they were all occupied by youth and developmental teams for the club. Sadly, only one field is allowed for the women and it was being used by a boys team when we arrived. Typical.
5. The last and most important thing he told me was that most of them are lesbians. In the car Dario was like "Do you play with many lesbians?" jajaja At first I didn't know what he was asking but them I figured it out and i started laughing. I said I've been on teams with one or two but the majority of female soccer players are not gay. I had to explain to him that people don't really use the word "lesbian" as frequently as they do "gay", when describing both men and women. I said normally you ask or start out with "are you gay?" and then respond with "oh, your a lesbian." This is just my experience with the term, I have no idea if this is correct or not. Sorry if i offend anyone!!!!
So feeling some what prepared for my soccer debut in Argentina, my nerves started to settle. We arrived and walked around all the fields to find the girls team. As we walked around I noticed a lot of eyes on me. It made me feel a little self-conscious but at least I wasn't alone. Dario showed me the indoor facility and I saw these girls twirling around on roller skates. It was awesome! I wanted a picture but Dario said it wasn't a good idea. :( He explained that its a sport down here, its like ice skating but on roller blades. heheheh I would like to try it sometime.... We finally arrived and I got dressed as the team listened to the coach for like 20 minutes. Reminded me of my club days with my coach Brad. I saw some girls zoning out while others played with their shoes while he talked. Dario informed me that they were playing Boca on saturday and it was a HUGE game because last season San Lorenzo beat them in the final for the first time in 6 years, so they have to defend their title.
After the lecture we finally headed out to the la cancha (field). The nicest girl was the keeper who was around 30 years old with lots of gray hair jajaja I have no idea how to pronounce her name but at least she tried to talk to me. Their idea of a "warm up" is one touch keep away with two girls in the middle of a circle of ten girls. The twist is that if the girls in the middle get nut-megged or hit with the ball on the first pass they have to stay in longer. I was thinking, great I can do this, but then they stringed maybe 3 passes in a row before the ball was hit out of bounds. I touched the ball once and watched as the girls interacted. In my opinion it wasn't much of a warmup at all. I was introduced to the only girl who spoke Ingles because she grew up in, guess where, TEXAS. I'm fairly sure that I met more people from Texas during this trip than i ever will for the rest of my life. Her name was Juliette and she was nice but didn't really talk to me that much. After the "warm up" the girls did a combination of agility and running warm up exercises. I enjoyed them and I thought they were useful things to start a practice with. I thought it was funny when some girls kept messing up, while I got it right even though all the directions were in Spanish.
After the agility drills I expected the real drills to begin. Oh no, I was very wrong. They went straight into scrimmaging. I would have been fine except I hadn't touched a ball, I wasn't use to the field, I was playing center mid with a girl who gave off a "oh great i have to work with the foreigner vibe", oh and did i forget to mention that they don't use pennies????? I had no idea who was on my team. They all wore the same thing and i didn't know any of their names, plus the coach just switched people freely. HELPPPPPPP!!! The two or three times I actually touched the ball I lost it because I had no idea who to pass it to. It was a great first impression. On top of that the coach told me to play defensive mid, while the other girl plays offensive but the whole time my teammate was marking the girl near me and never moved up. I was completely lost! Harumph!!! Also, they were playing starters vs. second string and everyone knows how unfair that normally is. This was my first time on the second string side of the table and it was NOT fun. Finally after a while the coach comes up to me and is like "You get off now." jajaja I was like "gladly." sigh, I was frustrated but it made me miss practice and playing soccer. So on the sidelines I talked to Dario and met one of the girls little brother Tomas. He asked me all kinds of questions like "Do i like soccer?", "Do I speak Spanish?", and "Have I ever met anyone famous?". He was adorable and the nicest person of anyone. We ended up passing and juggling together until the practice was over.
Practice ended and I got my things to leave. The keeper asked if i was going to shower and I told her i didn't have a towel, which was true, but in the back of my mind i was thinking about how most of them were gay and that made me a tinyyyyyyy bit uncomfortable. Plus I wasn't really sweaty. Dario was nice enough to drive me home but he also agreed to drive home these two guys as well. They didn't speak Ingles so I had a hard time keeping up with their conversations in the car. HOWEVER, when i took out my snack i saved and started eating I heard Dario say " ella dkfjdksljjorf dkfdkjl SNACK ehrehreh jeneifnnfrf...". I could tell they were talking about me. I asked Dario if he was talking about me and he smiled and said "Of course not". Yeah, he was explaining to the guy that Americans snack in between meals (In Argentina snacking doesn't really exist). Oh silly Americans and there silly ways!
So I'm not gonna say that I enjoyed my first training experience, but it wasn't horrible. I'm really worried/scared to take the bus alone to the field because I'm nervous about getting off at the wrong stop and having to walk around in a shady part of town alone. Normally I don't have any issues about going to places on my own, but the buses don't run that frequently in the dangerous neighborhoods, I would have my purse and other valuables with me that i travel with because I would be coming from class, and I don't have a good map of the area. I'm gonna talk to Dario about taking a taxi to the stadium and see if that could work. I will say that futbol is futbol and you can't keep me away from it for too long :)
