Open Goal Soccer

One pleasant surprise for me has been that there are nightly soccer games at the compound where we’re staying! And the pick-up teams have been gracious enough to let me play several times last week when I was free. Around 6-6:15 p.m. there are about 20 young adult guys who show up who are connected to local churches or Wrld Vision and get warmed up to play. They only play until about 6:45 as it starts to get too dark at that point, but they do seem to have a good idea of when half of the game is over. At that point they stop and one of the teams gets a chance to shoot at an empty goal from midfield (the goals are iron frames about 4’ X 2’). I don’t understand why exactly they do this and am sad that I haven’t picked up on many of the things they say while playing soccer. I’m also surprised that they didn’t pick the large dirt/sand area of the parking lot for the compound to play on, but instead play on a little smaller (maybe 60 yrds) field area that is a mix pebbly stones and weedy plants. The good news is that playing soccer stays pretty much the same around the world, it can still give a good workout even in short doses, and I haven’t been a total embarrassment to US soccer yet!

Can you find the white guy?