The Opportunity of a Lifetime

After an hour and a half, the bus turned into a small town called Lesaka. My IFC soccer team and I were headed to our first knockout game of the Donosti Cup, one of the largest annual international youth soccer tournaments. It would also be the last game of our season, although we didn’t know it at the time.

        Our season started off easy. Our team was one of the best in the state, so local teams in our league were no match for us. One of the teams in our league was Mahomet-Seymour Soccer Club, who were so much worse than us that our coach required us to win by at least 10 goals; for every goal we didn’t score, we’d have an hour of running during practice. We won 13-1. As the season progressed, we faced tougher and tougher opponents, especially during tournaments. My favorite was the Midwest Turf Challenge in Westfield, Indiana. Although the majority of my team were playing a year younger, we beat a few top-ranked teams from Indiana. We eventually secured a spot in the final, where we played a team we had lost to earlier in the tournament. Playing one of our best defensive games ever, our team outclassed an older, more athletic, and more physical team in a 3-1 win.

By the end of the regular season, we had fundraised for the trip to Spain and were ready to go. Although the regular season had been full of victories, I knew the Donosti Cup wouldn’t be the same – after some research, I’d found out that professionals and ex-professionals such as Xabi Alonso, Jordi Alba, and Nacho Fernández played in the tournament when they were young. Furthermore, youth divisions of the world’s biggest teams – Barcelona, Manchester City, Juventus, and Paris St. Germain – were invited every year. It’s safe to say that I was pretty scared.

We first arrived in the morning in Madrid, and took a bus to our hotel at the Ciudad de Fútbol, where the Spanish National team trains during international breaks. We started the trip by exploring the city, and in the afternoon, we went on a tour. Unfortunately, the majority of the people struggled to stay awake due to jet lag, and by the time the sun set, over half the bus, including me, was fast asleep. Throughout the following days, we practiced at the Real Madrid training facilities, visited Las Rozas Village, and toured the Santiago Bernabeu, which is the Real Madrid stadium. As the tournament time drew nearer, we took a bus to Donostia-San Sebastian, where we took part in an opening mini-tournament, consisting of four short games against other teams from America. We were pummeled in every game, further dampening my hopes of standing a chance.

A few days later, we played our first game, which was against a Spanish team. Like I expected, we lost. Despite the opposition being smaller than us, we weren’t able to get control of the ball. In the end, the score read 4-1. However, the tides turned in our second game, which was against another team from Spain. We were lucky to have it end in a 2-2 draw – the other team had far more chances than us, but my team’s defensive superiority clearly shined over the opposition’s. And in the third game, we achieved our first victory in Spain. Again, we were lucky, but this time it was because of the players, who were of a broad range of ages, not to mention that they had no substitutes. Our win meant that we made it past the group stage to the elimination rounds, where we would face much harder teams.

Three days later, we arrived at the field in Lesaka. It was gorgeous, surrounded by trees and mountains. While we warmed up, we tried to observe the other team. There was no doubt they were taller and stronger than us, but so was the team in Indiana. Their passing didn’t look too good, but their shots were hard. We would just have to make sure they didn’t get any shots on target. Our main goalie decided not to travel to Spain, so we were playing with a backup, who would hopefully perform well.

Unfortunately, the game went badly. We were far from our best, with even our most consistent players being too scared to challenge the opposition. The ball was in our half for just about every second, and once the other team took possession, we stood no chance against their powerful shots. On the bright side, we got further in the tournament than I expected, ended our season at a beautiful field playing against a high-level team, and were able to relax and enjoy the rest of the trip.