It was a jam-packed week in Ethiopia with hardly any rest days, but finally, we were nearing the light at the end of the tunnel. I began packing up my apartment and throwing aside whatever equipment, though little, I had left to run a final session with Hold My Hand’s last group of beneficiaries: the U15 Boys’ Team.

With that program pending, this meant that I would have worked with every single one of their squads except for their divisional team, which included adults aged 18 to around 25. Rushing in a training session before a midnight flight back to the United States through Istanbul, I knew that the afternoon would be tight. Nevertheless, I was determined to not leave out any group of beneficiaries, so I hopped in an Ethiopian “Uber” and set the location back to the familiar Goro Government School from Sunday’s training. You should know by now that I’m a pretty prompt guy. “To be early is to be on time, and to be on time is to be late,” is a mantra I was taught back in grade school and let’s just say, it stuck.

Thus, I arrived at 3:30 for the 4 p.m. session. It was a beautiful day and the sun was shining from high above our field. Little did I know, Goro School was still in session and these kids sure were curious. With an enrollment of more than 7,000, I hardly need to paint the scene. It was loud, it was chaotic, it was a beautiful mess of students covering every inch of the football field and bleachers surrounding it. Sufficiently overstimulated, I thanked the heavens when the bell rang and most of the students departed through Goro’s front gates to their parents and homes.

The only people left behind were another football team, myself, and a handful of students in an extracurricular running club. I posted up near the top of the bleachers and began prepping for the U15 session. I had my boots, cones, a whistle, and nothing else. Seven days into a seven day trip, I was completely cleaned out of equipment. I didn’t even have one football on me and man, when I tell you I sure could have used one. But of course, we’ll get to that later. 

As the minutes passed, HMH beneficiaries slowly made their way onto the pitch and into the stands to change into training gear. Familiar faces from our headshot photoshoot session entered the fold and all greeted me warmly in typical Ethiopian fashion. Amongst those strolling in was the ever-so-friendly Coach Eliab. Mikky was by his side, hopeful to observe one last session before I departed the country. With the pair was another staff member from the foundation. Armed with a camera around his neck, he was hoping to film some b-roll with an interview, to be blasted out on Hold My Hand’s socials following our collaboration. 

I got to chopping it up with Mikky as we waited for the rest of the team to arrive. He told me that this group, the U15 boys, had just played a game over the weekend and that game had resulted in a victory, 2-1, in favor of the good guys.

Mikky smiled. “Actually, some of these kids were on the receiving end of your football boots too, Stephen,” he said.

Evidently, the foundation keeps them during the week, then distributes them to whoever needs them during games. This way, their use would be maximized, and they could never go missing. The boys were excited to practice, since they would be playing yet another game again the next weekend.

“Coach, are you coming to watch?” one of the team’s strikers asked.

“I wish boys! I gotta fly back to America in like five hours!!” I yelled out.

“This is our captain,” said Mikky, gesturing towards one of the boys. “He is a very good and talented young player, and an excellent leader,” he added, although I could already tell.

Another one of the U15 boys, a lanky fella named Eyob, stepped forward to greet me although I had seen plenty of him in the days prior. Together me, him, Mikky, and some of the coaches, had enjoyed many conversations at the girls’ home following earlier sessions in the week. He was a trusted individual, one I tasked with helping distribute the same Ethiopian-colored bracelets I gave him the day prior for safekeeping.

“Coach, you don’t know any drills that don’t require a ball?” Mikky asked, following the team’s quick warmup and stretch.

“Not today, Mikky!” I answered, knowing I had very much planned to incorporate ballwork in all the drills I scheduled out.

Still waiting on our bag full of soccer balls, I looked over at the other half of the field – currently inhabited by the other team sharing the field with us. “What’s their deal?” I asked Mikky.

“Well, they’re a very well known academy, but they charge their players $25 per month to train,” he said. My eyes got big.

“We beat them though, always,” said Mikky with a devious smile on his face.

The sun still torching our dirt field, I looked off into the distance to see Coach Eliab removing a big navy and yellow puffer jacket he had shown up to training wearing. Underneath it? He was rocking my gifted Colombia jersey with pride, as it matched perfectly with his jacket.

“See, Coach! I wore this one specifically for you,” he said with a smile that could be seen all the way from the opposite sideline.

As Mikky had mentioned, this team, the U15s, for some reason was traditionally the least-invested into one. Apparently, the boys can only train twice a week during the school week and their technique surely reflects that, Coach Eliab told me. Still though, he knows that the potential is there. He stands firmly in that. For a while, master trainers would come visit the boys just to provide higher-level instruction. Sadly, though, the U15s were unsure how to properly drive a shot (opting instead for a toe poke) or how to hit a whipped-in cross.

“Slowly but surely, their technique is improving and developing,” said Coach Eliab, optimistically.

Soccer balls finally in our possession, we ran three square passing grids, hammering down the ever-important principle of “passing and moving”. Then, we broke off into a large possession drill with a yellow side pitted against a bib-less opposition. Meanwhile, the yellow team got smoked. I think they were forced to do at least three sets of five pushups after the other team successfully strung together seven passes without an opposition’s touch on the ball.

“Coach Eliab! Can you come over here?” I yelled out, calling to him from the other side of the possession grid.

Next, I broke things off into a drill all the way back from my playing days: North Carolina. Coach Eliab would be taking defensive players to the midfield line to hit long balls, while I would be working with the strikers, midfielders, and a goalkeeper. Basically, we had two lines across from each goalpost. Players would take turns hitting a pass to me, which I would then either lay back off for a one-time shot, hit wide to a winger in the corners to drive in a cross to the two players rushing into the box, or opt to hit a driven shot towards goal myself.

It took a few minutes, but once they were on the same page they sure were on point. Taking the boys back to the bleachers afterwards to wrap up the instructional part of the session, I polled the group, asking, “What did we learn in that last drill boys?” Eliab helped translate for me, even though some of the boys answered in English.

“Shooting.”

“Passing.”

“Crossing.”

“Finishing,” said one boy. I stopped him in his tracks. “Great answer, and today we worked on a specific type of finish, do you know what it’s called?” He shook his head. “One-touch finishes,” I said, recalling a highlight reel of acrobatic finishes, headers, flicks, and bikes the boys had pulled out of their pockets during our 30 minute drill.

To his credit though, our goalie, too, put on a clinic with a bunch of world class saves. From there, we broke off into a full field 9v9 scrimmage.

“Coach Eliab! I wanna play,” I called out, receiving a yellow training bib in return.

I scanned my side of the field, settling into my side nicely at the number 10 role. We had about 20 minutes to scrimmage and I enjoyed watching the boys ping long balls back and forth, pass the ball tidily, and finish accurately – successfully putting all we had learned into practical, in-game situations. I won’t toot my horn, but I did slot in a nice little assist on the day’s game-winning goal. Always gotta etch my name somewhere on the statsheet, you know that!

As we departed one last time back to the bleachers, the kids were super thankful that I made time to work with them. In return, I made sure to greet all of them personally before departing back to my homebase in Megananga for a quick shower ahead of my flight.

“They said thank you for the gift… the gift of your time,” translated Coach Eliab.