With Thursday’s session wrapped up and in the books, it was time to move on to Friday and yet another grassroots level program. The community was called Friendship Village, back south towards the airport, though not nearly as far.

We were scheduled once again for a 4 p.m. session, as the children were still attending school until past 3:00. We arrived a little past the hour and the kids were already out on the field moving their legs! Teams on each half of the field, they were running through some warmups with cones and hurdles carefully laid out.

The venue featured a sand field, but Winter and I both knew that skills developed on a surface like this could easily transfer over to a sleek, grass field. In fact, the field itself was hardly even reachable by road. We hit a convoy with Coach Scotty, Friendship All Stars’ well, all star coach, leading the way. Us in Winter’s van, and Coach Scotty shepherding the motorcade on his little electric bicycle up ahead. With larger numbers than our Soesdyke session, Coach Winter and I opted to run a joint session with the whole group, before breaking into mini sessions on either half.

We kicked things off with a big ball control circle, with the U14 players wrapped around the outside, and the U12s moving around on the inside. With a blow of the whistle, they’d change positions as we worked through push passes, volleys, half volleys, and headers. With our time running thin and the sun’s light running even thinner, Winter and I huddled up to discuss the next order of business. He would be taking the U12s to one side to run a possession drill while I ran the same one with the U14s on my half of the field.

The drill was simple. Two teams, distinguishable by colored bibs. String together seven straight passes without the other team touching (or stealing) it and that was a point. Every seven passes required the opposing team to do 10 pushups. Tweet! went my whistle. “That’s seven!” I yelled out, dropping down to the ground to hit 10 pushups with the losing side. Minutes later, tweet! Same old, same old. Fifty pushups later, I was beat. I knew my arms would be feeling it in the morning, but doing things alongside the players I knew was more important than just commanding them from a distance.

With just a little bit of time left, we broke our respective sides into small-sided scrimmages with cone goals set up at either end. The kids went after it with extreme grit & tenacity, as we made the most of the small, sandy space we called our “field” for the day. The sun all the way down and the moon up high in the sky, we blew things to a close before presenting Coach Scotty with a set of footballs for him to continue using in his training sessions. Before departing the field, Winter & I asked the kids for some feedback.

“Least favorite part of the session guys?” he asked. “It finished too fast!” said a U14 player. “Yeah!” exclaimed another.

“Favorite part guys?” I asked.

“Working on passing, volleys, headers,” they said.

“Wait Coach!” a young boy yelled out. “I remembered another part I didn’t like,” he said. “What’s that?” I questioned. “Push-ups, Coach! I definitely didn’t like those!” I nodded in agreement. Neither did I!

Sat back in Winter’s van, this time with no footballs left in tow (as they had all been left with Friendship’s all star, All Stars, squad, I took time to chop things up with Coach Winter in typical post-program fashion.

“Imagine?” said Winter. “Coach Scotty is the only one giving that community (Friendship) some sort of light in the dark.

We knew his work was important and we were determined to make sure he had the resources to continue making it happen. Plus, Coach Scotty was proven to be a deserving recipient.

“Stephen, I gave Coach Scotty six footballs too, last time I saw him,” said Winter.

“And you know what? Up until today’s training session he’s still using those same soccer balls. And I’m sure when he goes home with the eight we gave him today, he’s gonna wash them and clean them up – because that’s just how grateful he is for these precious, precious resources.”

Only two sessions in the bag, Winter was already proud of the work we had accomplished together.

At this point, we were reaching our home neighborhood, but Winter had a special detour in mind. Plus, Georgetown’s insane traffic further pushed the necessity of that detour. We passed a large, fenced in complex to our left – illuminated by high-rising lights.

“You wanna go check out the training grounds?” Winter asked.

“Sure!” I said, as we pulled into an empty lot as the U15 National Team trained on a beautiful turf pitch. They were in national camp ahead of a game the following week away against Suriname.

Winter looked on with pride as he introduced me to players and members of the coaching staff.

“I got 5 players from Herstelling on this squad,” he said, pointing all of them out one by one.

“Hey hermano cómo estás?” I said excitedly, scoping out a young man named Israel I had met at our dinner the day prior. Presently, he’s representing Guyana, with Venezuelan blood.

Just after, another boy, Jaiden, approached us – “Yo what’s up! How’s the knee?” I asked, as he was nursing a ligament injury. “It’s good, Coach, thanks,” he said with a smile – grabbing some water in between drills.

I turned to Winter, still a bit overwhelmed by the bright lights of National Team camp. “Man, Coach, this is another world for me. The turf fields, the bleachers, the lights. It ain’t my scene!” I said. “Earlier today? The sand field with no goals, the only light we had was that of the moon… see, that’s my scene, that’s where our work lives – at the grassroots level.”

Coach Winter recalled the session we had run merely hours prior. “But that’s exactly it, Stephen, the hope is that one day, one of those kids… from Soesdyke, Friendship, Agricola, they’ll be playing here in the National Team setup. And that’s exactly why we’re here doing what we do.”

“After all, Stephen, football is really just emotions. What emotions are we sharing, Coach? Love. You can’t always see it, but the kids man… they can feel it.”