After a jam packed Wednesday with the session at Casa Hogar Uriel alongside Connie from Xolas, I hit a quick overnight rest and started to plan out the next stop – Casa Hogar Belen, a children’s home heading back the same way as Uriel the day before. We were set to work with about 15 kids, but knowing how numbers can often change, I came bearing about 20 total soccer balls just to play it safe.

This session was pretty cool because when I had reached out to Belen from well, Casa Hogar Belen – I saw an old, old message in there from more than five years ago. I basically outlined the idea of a soccer class, but man even I barely knew what I was doing back then. They had been receptive to the idea even back then, but it just never materialized. Sometimes life just gets in the way. Tijuana became an afterthought, and not much more until this week. Nevertheless, it was cool to look at that “cold call” from so long ago and think how much things have changed yet how much has stayed the same. It seems a healthy balance of both is the best formula for success.

Now Thursday, it was time for the session. We had planned it for 1:30 in the afternoon, giving ourselves plenty of time to run the program, then get back and relax before the Xolas/Rayadas game that night. The schedule changed a bit at the last minute, but my day was flexible so I didn’t really mind. We pushed the session to 2:30 and as per usual I arrived a bit early to get acquainted with the kids and the space.

I hailed an Uber and hopped in alongside mom, who had come wielding 20 Mexico colored soccer bracelets to give out to the niños. The driver and I chopped it up about footy the whole drive talking about the World Cup and the chance of either of our countries passing the group stage. Next thing I knew, we had already pulled up to the blue towering walls of Casa Hogar Belen.

I walked through the front gate and was met by a couple of staff members and some eager kids offering their help with my bags full of soccer balls. We were deciding between playing in the parking lot or utilizing a multipurpose play area with a full playscape in the corner of it, eventually opting for the latter option. We had a very mixed group, young-old, boy-girl.

I started things off with a little introduction, as some of the kids helped set our first drill up for me. From there, I selected a captain – a young boy wearing a black Xolos jersey with red accents. The red captain’s band complimented it perfectly. The boy helped run a few rounds of our listening drill before moving over to some relay races. Before each variation, I’d yell out uno, dos, tres, followed by the tweet of my whistle. Before one of the later rounds started, one of the youngest boys at the Casa Hogar who couldn’t have been any older than three years old – yelled out uno, dos, tres and stretched both of his arms out excitedly! It was an adorable interruption to our regular scheduled programming.

We moved over to ball control grids, with the second grid being run by an extremely helpful boy, with the soccer skills to match. Lastly, we ran a few rounds of mano o cabeza under the cover of a tree in the corner of our playing space. From there we broke into a scrimmage – first to five goals, with my team ultimately losing 5-1 I think.

We were way past our scheduled one hour session at this point, nearing two hours – but the kids just did not want to stop playing. They were on vacation, so it’s not like there were any commitments to attend to anyway, besides the boys exiting the fold one at a time to get haircuts from a volunteer who had set up shop in one corner of Casa Hogar Belen’s campus. They’d all return back to our scrimmage beaming about their new cuts and fades. Once we were all worn down from the scrimmage, I called the whole group over to the dining area to take a seat so we could distribute prizes.

Our mano o cabeza winners stepped forward to grab new bracelets and their choice of soccer balls. Then, the rest followed suit. Surprisingly, the big size four and five soccer balls weren’t the first ones to be claimed as some of the older kids opted to leave with our mini soccer balls instead. As things wound down, mom had gathered a nice little group of participants to learn how to make the same bracelets they had been given. 

I later explained to Belen how one thing we ultimately want to do is take those bracelets made by the kids and give them to other kids in different communities all over the world. Just to bridge worlds and create little connections that may not have existed if not for otherwise. Plus, for a kid to think “Hey I think it’s kinda cool that another kid going through the things I’m going through in a different country made this with their own hands and now I’m wearing it around my wrist.”

One of the eldest girls, a sister of the boy who had helped me run ball control grids, was a seasoned pro – putting together five bracelets in less than 30 minutes! Her favorite color scheme was the Colombian flag. Knowing my hands were far more useless than my feet, I retreated to the parking lot with that girl’s brother to hit a little freestyle lesson. We practiced neck stalls, head stalls, little flick-ups and more. It was really dope. He would throw down a flick-up and then toss me the ball, encouraging me to imitate it or one-up it.

From there, we moved to some push-ups with the ball in a neck stall and he was able to do three! He wanted me to teach him how to do an around the world so I led him through some of the basic steps just encouraging him to keep working at it little by little. Freestyled out, we circled up with some of the other kids to play some basic juggling games, just trying to keep the ball in the air as long as we could. From there, we moved to a passing game with little feints and fake passes, with participants getting eliminated if they flinched and couldn’t hold their ground. Man this one had me sweating!

We then paired up in groups of two to see how many headers we could do back and forth. I think me and my helpful partner from earlier managed to take home the record with 15 aerial passes. Legs and bodies tired, we retreated back to mom’s crafting station in the dining area. We spoke about all things soccer, the kids eager to share their favorite teams like Madrid and PSG. That eldest girl from before ran to her room and came straight back out carrying a Man City hoodie she had wanted to show off. Mirroring her excitement, I told her my brother had just flown Manchester City back to England from the states and she would be happy to know that they were delightful passengers.

When all was said and done, we ended up leaving Casa Hogar Belen around 5:30, so things did run long, but in the best kind of way. The staff members had shared kind words of thanks about the experience and I could only echo the same words about the respect and attention I had been shown throughout the session.

It may have been 7 long years overdue, but man was it worth the wait to finally collaborate with this incredible place with an amazing group of kids. ¡Hasta la próxima, TJ!