I'm Lovin' It

One of the things Max misses most about the U.S. is playing with his soccer team, although he has joined a team here.  It has been a great source of training and making new friends, not to mention practicing Spanish.  The club is run by Cruz Azul, which is one of Mexico’s professional teams.  It has soccer schools around the country.  In the Oaxaca club, there are about 30 kids in Max's age group.  They are divided into smaller teams for games.  Max played in one “friendly” match a few weeks ago, but so far that’s all.  His first competitive game is in a couple of weeks.

Cruz Azul's newest addition

Probably the biggest difference between Max’s team in the U.S. and his team in Mexico is the amount of time the kids are allowed to fool around at practice.  At home, even when the kids scrimmage – which usually does not happen until the last 15 minute or so – they approach the game as they would if it were a regular game.  By comparison, when the kids scrimmage here, they try trick plays.  They do goofy maneuvers.  They taunt each other and call each other names.  There is a lot of laughing and rolling around on the ground.  And they do this for about half of each practice, with little input from the coaches.  (Max adds that there is more coaching than we see.  For instance, the coaches give them rules like "no more than three touches per person," or "the ball can't go higher than the knees."  Max learned the last one after having to do fifty squats for kicking a high ball.)

It would be easy to criticize spending half of each practice goofing around, but the kids have so much fun.  That is the point of playing the game, after all.  Also, after watching many hours of these scrimmage games, one starts to see how much the kids learn from them.  Experimenting with ways to trick the opponents in a setting where pretty much anything goes should translate into more creative play in actual games.  That would explain why countries with so much "street soccer” tend to develop more good players.

Plenty of street soccer in Mexico

Max has soccer practice three times a week for two hours each.  That is a lot of soccer practice for a parent to watch.  So yesterday I left him at practice and walked over to the “Plaza del Valle” shopping mall that is about 10 minutes from the field.  There, I am ashamed to say, I had one of my most enjoyable snacks yet in Oaxaca.  Can you tell where I was from this photo, and why I am reluctant to admit just how good it was?

It helps if I enlarge the picture.  Look at the logo on my cup.

That's right.  McDonald's.  I walked in mainly out of curiosity to see if there were any Mexican touches on the menu, like a McEnchilada or a McMole sandwich.  There were not.  (Although they had chile peppers at the catsup and mustard station.)  But it was the nicest looking McDonald's I have ever seen, and the ice cream and coffee I ordered tasted fantastic.

McDonald's.  Design by Ikea?

 When Max found out what I did during practice, he informed me that I "owe" him an ice cream.  But he said it cannot be from McDonald’s.  At least one of the guys in our family has standards.  --Harrison