love.fútbol - SECONDIÉME PRIX

Few people know love.fútbol began in Morocco. That's a soccer passionate country – though, as we know, there are many. At the right hour, it would seem children play on every street corner. However, it was in one narrow alley-way, in a town off the map – near Cascades d'Ouzoud, if you know it – where love.fútbol actually came about.

It was a 4 on 4 pickup game, with the most senior player no older than 10. In a small opening of the alley, roughly 8 feet wide by 25 feet long, was their pitch. Running lengthwise from top to bottom of their space and splitting their two rock goal posts at either end was a canal about a foot wide and deep, and with hard cement corners.

The children jumped back and forth effortlessly over the gap, and without looking. Their cracked plastic ball still rolled relatively true over the cobblestone – chipping it back and forth over as they played. Clearly, they'd grown up there. The canal was inherent to their game.

Youth determination and innovation to play was always something quite beautiful to me. I'd been fortunate to grow up around all types of makeshift soccer in many other parts of the world – trees or tires as goals, crooked spaces, slanted fields, irregular, imperfect, but still somehow, quite fine places to play this simple game.

However, there was something striking about this scene in the alley. The kids played hard and the inevitable slip, trip and fall into this gully would be harsh. It was beyond what I respected as the imperfect beauty of soccer at the grassroots level. It was simply not a safe place to play.

Going on five years later I've seen much worse challenges and learned of many crazier stories than of the one in Morocco. Children play barefoot in trash dumps, over trash, glass and rocky land every day. They dash between speeding cars to cross the eight lane N2 highway outside of the Khayelitsha Township in Capetown, South Africa, and then hundreds of them play for miles along the highway median. They play clandestine soccer on prohibited land when there is enough moonlight in Zacapa, Guatemala.

Just recently, I learned that Maicon and Michel Bastos, two current stars for the Brazilian National Team who played in the World Cup last month, each had a brother hit and killed by a car while playing soccer in the streets.

Around the world children are fighting to play the Beautiful Game. Every entry into this competition is a testament to the power of soccer to change lives. It begins with a safe place to play.

Thank you to everyone for their support.

Drew Chafetz
Co-founder, CEO
love.fútbol