Suyen, Director of Reporting, Dance and Spanish Lessons, and Transportation

Here is Suyen's account of game day this weekend, translated by our very own Dani Molina although I'm proud to say I understood approximately 11 words pre-translation.

Se lleva en la sangre y corre rápidamente al compás del sudor es hora del gol y más Fútbol.

Eran las seis y treinta de la mañana cuando el reflejo del sol apenas saliendo ayudaba a despertar y descargar toda la energía que en ese día las chicas necesitarían.

Rumbo a Matagalpa tierra de montañas y café partieron muy emocionadas la liga de fútbol Real Sultana, acompañadas de los entrenadores Chepe y Osiris, sin faltar Samantha una joven de Inglaterra que ha acompañado al equipo en sus giras y entrenamientos desde hace un mes.

Las chicas muy emocionadas durante el viaje cantaban y pateaban la pelota ya practicando los goles de ese día.

El reloj marcaba las once de la mañana y después de una lluvia bien fuerte el equipo de Real Sultana llego al punto de jugada, las chicas, corren la adrenalina se siente para muchas era primera vez que salían de Granada, dan una pequeña mirada al paisaje y se preparan para la Gran Jugada.

Antes de ir al campo se podía escuchar la frase favorita de todo el camino donde las jugadoras se preguntaban y contestaban a la vez ¿A qué venimos? A ganar!!!
Es así como el campo resbaloso, con el sol oculto entre las nubes y las montañas verdes con olor a café de Matagalpa le dan la bienvenida a el equipo Real Sultana y Cafetaleros de Matagalpa.

En el transcurso del partido las chicas se mueven rápidamente, las barras no se hacen esperar, el equipo opuesto marca su primer gol.
Sin embargo las jóvenes del Real Sultana no hacen al público esperar a los cinco minutos el primer gol. Después del primer tiempo y unas cuantas técnicas impartidas por los entrenadores, en medio del lodo, la brisa ligera y unas barras muy buenas inician nuevamente.

El juego llena de tensión, el público está estresado, las jugadoras muy preocupadas y a solo cinco minutos del partido se escucha un gollllllllllllllllllllllllllll de Mimi la capitana del equipo que nos llevaría a la Victoria del Real Sultana.

Luego del partido corrieron, gritaron el lodo se enjuagaron y el bus abordaron para saborear un delicioso almuerzo en un pueblo en el camino.

"It’s carried in the blood and it moves quickly to the rate of the sweat, its time for a goal and more soccer.

It was 6.30 in the morning when the reflection of the sun, just starting to show, was helping wake up the girls and give them all that energy they needed for that day.

To Matagalpa, earth of the mountains and coffee, the premier soccer team of Real Sultana left very excited with the company of the coaches, Chepe, Osiris, and Samantha of course, a young woman from England that has been supporting the team on their events for a month. The girls very excited throughout the trip were singing and kicking the ball around already practicing the goals for that day.

The clock read 11 in the morning and after a strong rain the team of Real Sultana got to its destination. The girls could just feel their adrenaline going. For many of them it was their first time leaving Granada. They contemplated for a little this new view and then quickly focused back on the great game.

Before stepping on the field you could hear them screaming their favorite phrase throughout the whole trip: “What did we come for? To WIN!!!”

And this is how the slippery field, with the sun hiding behind big clouds and the green mountains smelling like coffee welcomed the team of Real Sultana.
Throughout the game the girls were moving quickly and the fans could be heard strongly. The first goal came from the opponent. However, the players from Real Sultana didn’t make the fans wait for too long either. Five minutes later they scored to tie.

After the first half and going through some tactical plans with the coaches, in the middle of the slippery mud, a quick breeze and strong fans supporting the teams the game started once again. The game was full tension, the fans were stressed out, and the players were starting to get worried. With just five minutes left to the game we heard a golllllllllllll from Mimi, the captain of the team. It was the winning goal that gave the victory to Real Sultana.

After the game was done, they celebrated and got cleaned up from the mud, the team took off on the bus stopping for a tasty lunch in one of the town along the way back home."

And another!

post game celebration battling in the mud

introductions

looking tough!

Real Sultan has posted another win! Our official game reporter Suyen will give us the full update, so stay tuned!

Sky Blue teams up with SWB

Sky Blue soccer announced a partnership with Soccer Without Borders last week, hosting an equipment drive at their July 9th home game. Granada volunteer Daniela Molina plays for Sky Blue, alongside former Lehigh Assistant Coach Stephanie Peel who has also contributed her time and efforts to the project. The partnership will hopefully grow as Sky Blue becomes one of the inaugural members of Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) in 2009. Check out the announcement here: http://www.skybluesoccer.com/index.php/eng/sbs_news/20080703_soccer_without_borders

A win!

Real Sultan, the Granada premier women's team, got their first notch in the win column with a 2-1 win over the "All Stars" (a bit confident!) from Managua. Carlos, their coach, reports that the girls are working harder than ever and are ready to turn the win into a streak. The inaugural season of the Women's Premier National League has suffered some setbacks that led to cancelled games, including a transportation strike (due to the rising cost of gas) followed by a Tropical Storm. Nevertheless, the teams are still practicing hard and playing the games when they can, and we look forward to following their progress in the 2nd half of the season!

On another note, the U-20 National Team that we trained with is currently participating in the CONCACAF World Cup Qualifier. They opened the tournament with a 2-1 loss to Canada, an impressive showing against a well-known Canadian team! In Nicaragua's group are Canada, Costa Rica, and Jamaica. In the United States' group are Trinidad & Tobago, Mexico, and Cuba. The top two teams from each group move onto the next round, with the top two teams at the end of the tournament qualifying for the World Cup. The World Cup will be held in Chile in November. More info can be found on the US Soccer Website at: http://www.ussoccer.com/common/stContent.jsp_80-2008U20WNTWCQ.html

Ben just returned from a lengthy stint in Uganda, and we are all looking forward to catching up to speak about the next phase of the project. Saturday morning practices are still continuing, and we have now received two sets of evaluations from our Granada staff. We are excited to get some more fundraisers and equipment drives underway here in the states and are working to establish some partnerships with domestic teams. Stay tuned for updates on all of these fronts!

An update from the homefront

Despite the blog silence much has been going on with the SWB Nicaragua project since our departure at the end of March.

Upon our return, Molly, Daniela and I met up with Ben Gucciardi and Kyle Hartman to wrap up the trip and design a plan for the future of the project. Looking ahead, there is still much more to be done and we hope to make strides from afar in the next few months before returning to Granada in the winter to continue our work.


As of now, 8 Saturday morning practices with the young girls have taken place since we left. These have been led by Chepe, with the help of our 5 other SWB Granada employees. The practices have been averaging between 25-35 girls, and we hope that the numbers will continue to stay steady until we go back to Granada and reach out to more girls in more schools.

We are also proud to announce our official sponsorship of the Granada premier team, Real Sultana, in the National League. They are currently 4 games into the season and are 0-4 at the moment. It's been a real eye-opening experience for them to travel around the country representing Granada, and their coach, Carlos Zambrana, tells us of their renewed energy and efforts to improve. In a country with so few opportunities for girls to begin with, Granada is even farther behind. We are excited to hear more about the girls' reflections on the National League experience and see how we can translate that into ideas for greater opportunities for young girls in Granada. This sponsorship will act as a pilot for the potential sponsorship of the other 9 National League teams in the future, a major goal of ours for the next year. Through sponsoring these other teams, we hope that they will in turn launch Saturday practices for young girls in their respective towns, giving girls all over Nicaragua opportunities to interact, build confidence and athleticism, and develop relationships with older role models from their areas.

The word about this project and Soccer Without Borders work elsewhere has started to really spread, and we are constantly talking about how to involve future volunteers, as well as get more people involved here at home. We will look to hold fundraisers and equipment drives this summer and fall in preparation for our return in the winter. If someone could tell the airlines that charging for a second bag is a bad idea, we'd really appreciate it!

Stateside

The orange group after practice

The maroon team

Color wars!

After a long day and night of goodbyes and muchos bailar, we headed to the airport in the morning with Chepe, Neythen, Elise and Cesar, fittingly riding in a pile of bags in the back of a pick-up truck. We were all pretty exhausted after finishing everything on our Sunday to-do list, including zip-lining on the volcano, a pork lunch in the park, gift-buying, meeting with Chepe about his new contract, re-organizing what was left of the equipment, packing bags inside of other bags, making sure we purchased a lifetime supply of bachata music, and enjoying the fiesta Dona Bertha was hosting for us.

As if we hadn't committed enough faux-pas, we learned that at a Nicaraguan fiesta the guests of honor are supposed to serve the other guests, NOT serve themselves food as they wait for the perpetually late Nicaraguans to arrive. For example, if it were your birthday and I threw you a party, it would be your job to serve the guests, not mine. Chowing down on some pretty stellar mix of rice and chicken that Dona Bertha had cooked up, we slowly noticed that no one else in the family was eating...and bit by bit we pieced together the rules of etiquette we had clearly broken. Lucky for us, all the Nicaraguans arrived so late that we had finished our second and third portions by then, and were ready to wait on them all they wanted.

Five year old Jose Luis stole the show at the fiesta, living up to the nickname we gave him, Casanova. He danced with every single one of us, both bachata and regeton, and then found himself another 5 year old to dance with. The little girl, Denise, was very obviously jealous when she had to sit on the side while Lea taught Jose Luis the running man.

Home now for nearly 48 hours, it's been quite a culture shock. Living on less than 10 dollars a day for the last 6 weeks, within the first few hours of being back I had already spent 10 times that here...between parking costs, meals, gas, and an all-important oil change. It's incredible to think how far that money can go in a place like Granada, even if just once in awhile we would forego that Panera sandwich and opt for some Ramen. Thinking about this along with how to ensure this project doesn't end here are the next priorities for us now that we're home. As things unfold, I'll be sure to keep this updated, so don't take it off your list of procrastination websites forever!

Til then..

Adios amigas!

This morning we had our last practice with the little girls. After an exciting warm-up, we broke into technical ladders where the girls have to complete a skill in pairs. Just weeks ago, the groups struggled to score points in the various skills, but today they were breaking double digits! It's been really fun to see how quickly they improve when given the chance to practice regularly. Halfway through practice we broke into teams and gave the girls colored tshirts that they can wear at future practices. Most of them now have cleats, but many don't have athletic wear and often show up in their school blouses or tank tops. At the end, we also handed out some white tshirts, shorts, and socks so they can have at least one full athletic outfit. Maybe it will convince some of them to stop running in jeans and skirts! Particular thank yous to the Radnor Soccer Club and Asphalt Green for donating this gear!

After practice, we announced that we are turning the reigns over to four local Granada premier players, and two local men's players to continue Saturday practices. We introduced everyone and the little girls seemed very excited to hear that practices will continue in the future.

With just two days left, we're trying to wrap our minds around everything that's happened in the last six weeks. Tomorrow will be a day for goodbyes, and hopefully a chance to tackle that volcano before we go!