Which Super do you Work At?

On Saturday I went to Fundación Dequení’s Fútbol Callejero tournament. A couple of times a month, they organize a day of street soccer for the kids working in their supermarket baggers programs. I met Robert and a few other Dequení staff members at the foundation at 7am and we road in a minivan, along with 12 kids and 8 disassembled soccer goals, to a nearby park.

When we arrived, I helped hang banners and assemble goals and then was sent to Robert’s field to help him manage the game. Armando, who runs the show on soccer days, came over to review the rules and procedures. “These games aren’t just about goals,” he said. “We don’t want anyone going home hurt today so I want to see clean games, I want to see solidarity and respect, and I don’t want to hear profanity,” he explained. “Robert will be keeping track of your values, which matter just as much as goals,” he added, most of the kids nodding that they understood. “But of course,” he continued, “the team that scores the most goals, wins. And the other side goes home. I mean, that’s obvious,” he added, the kids again nodding their approval.

Before the action started, Robert added that he would also be watching how each team celebrated its goals. Having grown up watching Deon Sanders and TO collect fines and enemies for their “excessive celebrations,” I naturally assumed that Robert would be penalizing us for embarrassing our opponents or wasting too much time with our post-goal antics. As in turned out, however, the only celebration rule seemed to be: “the more-extravagant the better,” (a fact I quickly realized when one team, following an easy goal tapped in from a couple of yards out, picked up the scorer and danced the perimeter of the field with him on their backs).

The Dequení folks were nice enough to let me join the kids playing, and I offered to play be keeper for a team that was short a player. The teams are divided by supermarkets, and some are smaller than others. The smallest, including mine, formed mixed teams. This meant that my teammates assumed I worked in a super, and each asked me, in turn, “which super do you work at.” Sometimes they phrased it more like “where are you from,” and were completely bewildered when I offered up my nationality, rather than workplace. Needless to say, it was not an international crowd; neighborhood and type of supermarket form the most important boundaries and harshest rivalries in the Dequení games. So I was something of an oddity. Several kids asked if I was from Brazil and one simply told me I was Argentinian.

My team won its first match and, as our opponents returned to the bus stop on their way home or to the afternoon shift bagging groceries, moved to the next field to play another winning team. “I´ll play goalie in the second half,” a small kid the Super Seis in Luque offered. “Don’t worry,” I told him, “I actually like playing in goal, so if no one else wants to, I’ll stay there.” He agreed.

It may be a mark of how well-developed this country’s soccer is, that in Paraguay, there actually are real goal keepers. In Panamá, it often took pushing and shoving to decide who would be relegated to goalkeeper, and almost everyone would tell you they were a forward, if you asked them. In Paraguay, even kids younger than 10-years-old seem to have chosen or been assigned the position they are best at. It is often actually the most capable keeper (rather than simply the fattest kid) who stands between Paraguayan posts. So, when I told my team I would gladly stay in goal for the rest of the day, they understood and didn’t feel the need to thank me.

My day finished with a game between the Dequení staff and a bunch of local men who come every Saturday to beat up on the social workers before starting the nights binge. Not surprisingly, I spent the game in goal. As far as Fundación Dequení is concerned “the blonde kid only plays keeper.”