The Away Game: The Epic Search for Soccer's Next Superstars by Sebastian Abbot

The Away Game: The Epic Search for Soccer's Next Superstars by Sebastian Abbot

Author:Sebastian Abbot [Abbot, Sebastian]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2018-03-06T05:00:00+00:00


Like Brazilians, the African kids Colomer assembled in Senegal had spent thousands of hours playing in the street and elsewhere before they even made it to the academy, and the experience showed when they took the field. They played professional teams from Senegal’s top leagues on the weekends and often crushed them. One of Diawandou’s best memories was when his class destroyed one of the country’s most successful clubs, Jeanne d’Arc, as Colomer proudly watched from the sidelines. “It was an amazing game,” said Diawandou. “They were older than us, but we won 6-0.” The Football Dreams players developed the reputation as the team to beat in Senegal, and opposing clubs celebrated like it was the World Cup on the rare occasions they won. Journalists even printed the results in local newspapers even though the games were only friendlies.

The Football Dreams players began to build a reputation in Europe as well. The second class of kids traveled to Italy in May 2010 to compete in the Ciociaria Cup, a tournament held at an area between Rome and Naples with 32 teams from around the world. They blew away most of the competition, outscoring their opponents 19-1. The team took home the trophy after beating a side from Paraguay, Club Nacional, 2-1 in the final, and Ibrahima was the tournament’s top scorer, with twelve goals.

It was the first major tournament that any of the Football Dreams teams had won, and the kids were ecstatic. A photo of the players taken on the field after the victory shows them crowded around the tall metal trophy they won, wearing blue and white Aspire uniforms. Ibrahima stands at the back with a smile on his face and his arms around his teammates, while several of the other players scream in delight. The only disappointment was that the trophy ended up getting mangled on the way home when they were forced to put it through the X-ray machine at the airport in Rome, and it got stuck.

The Football Dreams players also traveled to Spain at least once a year to play tournaments and friendlies against the country’s top youth teams. Once again, they almost always came out on top, even against Barcelona and Real Madrid. “Every time we play against Barcelona, we have to play against one year older than us because if we play the same age, we beat them,” said Colomer.

On one occasion, the first class of kids took on one of Real Madrid’s youth teams at the club’s glamorous training facility, Ciudad Real Madrid. One of the strikers from the first class, the Nigerian Jasper Uwa, who scored against Neymar’s Brazil in Doha, got injured before the match, so the coaches plucked Ibrahima from the second class to see if he could keep up his goal-scoring ways against older kids at one of the world’s top clubs.

The answer was an emphatic yes. Ibrahima scored a hat trick and provided an assist to help the team bowl over Real Madrid 5-0. Lamine Savané,



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