Outcasts United

by Warren St. John

  The Blue Springs players, particularly the midfielders and forwards, towered over the Fugees, especially little Qendrim, Mohammed, and Prince. Qendrim, though, wasn’t intimidated. He was confidently directing his team from center midfield, ordering his defense to move up the field in an effort to set up the offsides trap. The timing was perfect: a Blue Springs midfielder booted the ball over the Fugees defense, and to an apparently offsides forward. But the linesman didn’t raise his flag. The Blue Springs player, alone now and unchallenged, dribbled toward Mafoday, who stood impassively in goal, waiting for the inevitable shot. When it came—high and toward the middle of the goal—Mafoday raised his arms over his head and tried to jump. The ball sailed just over his fingertips. Blue Springs was up 1–0.

  The Fugees’ earlier confidence seemed instantly drained. Several players lowered their heads. They began to play flat, as if convinced that no matter how hard they tried, they would not be able to score. Just before the half, they stumbled into an opportunity, when Grace controlled a ball on the right wing. He lobbed a beautiful cross toward the center, but again, there was no one in the middle to finish. At the half, the Fugees trailed 1–0, and Luma was livid.

  “You guys are a pathetic excuse for a soccer team,” she told the boys, her voice breaking with anger. “They’re beating you to the ball, they’re outhustling you, and they’re taking more shots. I want to know why that cross that Grace just sent over had nobody to finish it off. Josiah? What the hell was that? All you guys did was talk, talk, talk on the bus. Talk, talk, talk before the game. Making fun of every kid on the field. And look at the way you’re playing. Stupid! If I had some eight-year-olds out here they’d be laughing at you. You got one player doing his job out there, and that is Qendrim—and that is it! He’s the only one telling you to push up, turn around, hustle, and you’re not even listening to him! And the thing is, you beat this team already! So you think you’re better than them. And you’re playing like you think you’re better than them. But the fact is, they’re better than you. Because they don’t want to go home today losing. And it looks to me like I’ve got players who know how to talk and don’t know how to play. You are down one to nothing, and you will not finish this game off unless every single one of you plays his position, fights for that ball, and takes some shots!

  “I’ve been waiting to see you guys play your best and I haven’t seen it,” Luma said. “It had better happen in this half.”

  THE FUGEES TOOK the field in silence, and traded guilty looks as they waited for the referee. When play began, they seemed more focused, more communicative. Qendrim doled out passes to Josiah and Jeremiah on the wings. The Fugees attacked once, then again. Ten minutes into the second half, Josiah tapped the ball past his defender on the left wing and then sprinted after it, leaving the Blue Springs player frozen behind him. Alone now, he dribbled toward the goal. On Thursday, Josiah had had just such an opportunity against the older Fugees and had blown it by blasting a long shot over the top of the goal. Today, he was patient, dribbling all the way toward the Blue Springs keeper before tapping the ball to his left: a gentle shot that rolled into the net. The game was now tied, 1–1. A few minutes later, Bien had a go. The Blue Springs goalie came out to meet him, and Bien took the shot, which rolled all the way across the face of the goal, wide. The Fugees kept fighting, firing a series of quick shots from around the perimeter of the box. Midway through the half, the Fugees had taken seven shots and Blue Springs none, and yet the score was still tied. Qendrim ordered his defense to move farther up the field; he wanted to keep the pressure on.

  “Come on, guys,” he said. “We gotta win. We gotta get one more.”

  The Fugees now had a corner kick. Bien floated the ball toward the center of the field, but a Blue Springs player volleyed it back toward him and out of bounds. Quickly, Bien heaved the ball back into play. Jeremiah controlled the throw-in and tapped it back to Bien, who crossed the ball back into the middle and right at Idwar Dikori, who was unmarked. Idwar extended his leg and the ball ricocheted off his instep and into the back of the net. The Fugees were now ahead 2–1.

  A few minutes later, Jeremiah added another with a canon shot from fifteen yards out. His teammates responded by getting on the ground and kissing his shooting foot. When the final whistle blew, the Fugees had won 3–1.

  “You played a first half that sucked so bad, I just wanted to make you run laps all season,” Luma told them afterward. “To come back and play a second half like that … I can’t handle it, okay? I almost had a heart attack.”

  The boys responded with applause. The Fugees had played their best half of soccer yet. The comeback, though, had come at a cost. Qendrim had twisted his ankle and was now limping badly. Shahir, the left midfielder who frequently set up Josiah for attacks down the left sideline, had lost the nails of both of his big toes because his cleats had been too tight. He was growing quickly and hadn’t been able to afford new shoes. And after a frantic and relentless second half, the Fugees were tired. Luma moved the team to the shade, handed out bananas and snack bars, and encouraged them to drink water. They wouldn’t have much time to recover. Their next game at the Tornado Cup started in less than an hour.

  IN THEIR SECOND game of the day, it took the Fugees’ opponents just forty-eight seconds to score—on a long pass down the left side and a quick shot that surprised Mafoday and slipped through his hands. A short while later the opponents, a team from Warner Robbins, Georgia, called the Strikers, scored again, this time on Eldin. The Fugees were getting manhandled. Shahir, already limping, caught an elbow to the face and came out with a bloody lip. Later, Grace was elbowed in the midsection and crumpled over. The Fugees didn’t give up. Josiah scored early in the second half, dancing around the keeper, who had come out of the goal to challenge him. But as time wound down, the Fugees still trailed 2–1. In the final moments, Jeremiah fired a shot from ten yards out. The Strikers’ keeper bobbled the ball and seemed to stumble back into the goal. But the linesman ruled that the ball had not completely crossed the end line. The Fugees were spent. They failed to mount another attack. Less than three hours after their best soccer of the season, they were beaten 2–1.

  THE FUGEES WERE scheduled to play a morning game on Sunday, and there was an outside chance—if other teams lost—that the morning match might count as more than a consolation round. But Luma didn’t have high hopes. A single loss, she assumed, would knock the Fugees out of contention for the cup. To be sure, she’d have to wait for results from the other afternoon games. For now, Luma had other things to worry about. She had arranged for a Saturday-night team sleepover at the YMCA, and she had to get her team fed and rested. The boys brought blankets and sleeping bags and arranged themselves on yoga mats around a TV in an upstairs room at the Y. Luma put on a video of old World Cup highlights and the movie Goal! Despite the excitement of a rare spend-the-night gathering, the boys dropped off to sleep one by one, exhausted from the day’s soccer. Luma meanwhile logged on to the Tornado Cup website to check the standings. The Fugees, she learned, were still in it. If they won their next game against the Concorde Fire, they were going to the finals.

  THE CONCORDE FIRE were, in almost every way, the antithesis of the Fugees. The team came from one of the Atlanta area’s most prestigious—and expensive—soccer academies, the Concorde Football Club, in the upscale suburb of Alpharetta. Registration fees for the club cost upwards of $1,200, but with equipment, tournament fees, and the like, Nancy Daffner, a team mother and volunteer for the Fire, estimated that she and her husband spent more than $5,000 a year on soccer.

  Daffner, a chipper part-time substitute teacher whose son Jamie played on the Fire, was the perfect embodiment of a suburban soccer mom—which was not lost on Daffner herself. Standing before a large bulletin board bearing the Tornado Cup tournament bracket, she wore a custom-made gray sweatshirt with the words SOCCER MOM on the back.

  Most of the boys on the Fire had been playing together for years. Their coach, Jeff Fran
ks, a former high school and college player, had led the team for five years, since the boys were eight or nine years old. He had spent that time developing basic skills patiently, in a way he knew wouldn’t necessarily lead to victories early on but that he believed would pay off over time. The Fire practiced twice a week from six-thirty p.m. to eight p.m.—their practice facility was lighted so evening practices were not a problem—and the team met on additional nights for speed and agility training. The Fire kept sharp during the off-season by attending at least half a dozen tournaments. In the wintertime, they practiced at an indoor facility, and in the summer, the boys attended soccer camps, including a popular program hosted each summer by Clemson University in South Carolina.

  With so much soccer and travel, the parents of the Fire players had become especially close. Daffner, who estimated she spent fifteen hours a week working on behalf of the team, said that the Fire had become a central part of the parents’ social lives. The moms went out together for margaritas while the fathers watched their sons practice, and the adults spent time together on those trips and camp outings.

  “Instead of just dropping and running, you socialize,” she said. “Yesterday all of us went out to Fuddruckers in between games. Parents sat at a group of tables. Kids sat at one big table, and played arcade games. We have an end-of-the-season party each season. We take lots of pictures.”

  Soccer was not the only extracurricular activity for the kids on the Fire. One player on the team was a cellist with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s youth program. Daffner’s son was a sportscaster at his school’s own radio station, a gig that required him to get to the campus an hour early each day. Many of the boys on the Fire were so-called TAG children—a school system designation that meant “talented and gifted.”

  “Most of our boys are overachievers,” Daffner said.

  While the boys on the Fire were dedicated to their team, their other activities cut into the amount of time they could devote to soccer.

  “We live in neighborhoods where they come out, and they play football,” Daffner said. “They play baseball. They jump on a trampoline. They ride their bikes. They’re all organized activities. So if it’s not organized soccer, they’re not playing soccer.”

  There was one exception to this rule: a young Colombian immigrant on the Fire named Jorge Pinzon—Nini to friends and teammates. Pinzon lived far from Alpharetta, in the Atlanta suburb of Lawrenceville, a rapidly growing town with a large Latino population. His parents were separated; his mother, Pilar, spoke little English and cleaned houses for a living, and his father lived in Colombia. Pinzon’s interaction with his father was limited to occasional and usually short phone calls. The boy felt his father’s absence, especially on game days.

  “It would be different if my dad was here to support me,” Pinzon said. “He loves soccer.”

  Unlike the other kids, Pinzon didn’t pay to play on the Fire. Instead, parents of the other boys pitched in to cover his expenses and went out of their way to support his participation on the team. When his mother couldn’t get him to games because of her work schedule, parents of the other players would drive across town to pick him up. Few were familiar with Lawrenceville, so they usually arranged to meet Pinzon at easy-to-find landmarks—the parking lots of local gas stations or convenience stores.

  Nini Pinzon was passionate about soccer. On nights when he didn’t practice with the Fire, he could often be found on fields at Bethesda Park, near his house, playing with older boys and grown men. That was the way to get better, he believed. Pinzon was easily the best player on the Fire. Daffner joked that he had probably had a soccer ball in his crib.

  Pinzon had connected with the Fire through an uncle who was familiar with the soccer scene in Atlanta. The Concorde program was too expensive for Pinzon, so he was given a “scholarship”: his fees were waived, and expenses for gear and travel were covered by the team. This arrangement benefited everyone; the Fire got a ringer, and Pinzon got to play organized soccer on a traveling team for free. In the process, he made friends with his teammates, and he appreciated the concern the other parents showed for him and his family.

  “They’re very supportive of me,” he said.

  Pinzon had heard about the Fugees from other kids in town. He knew they were from parts of the world where kids played street soccer—with quick passes and nimble footwork. The Fugees were supposed to be fast—and good. As he watched the opposition warm up before the game, Pinzon said he felt he had something in common with them. He could tell from their mismatched socks and from the array of faces that they probably didn’t live as comfortably as his teammates did. He thought he knew how the Fugees might feel, showing up to play a group of mostly white kids with all the latest gear.

  “My teammates are, like, much better off than me,” he said. “They got a lot of stuff. So I just feel different. It’s all Caucasian people; I’m the only Latino. It can be intimidating.”

  Pinzon let the thought drop. There was a game to play. He intended to win.

  The Fire was too far behind in the standings to advance to the finals with a win over the Fugees, but they were in a position to play the role of spoiler. The Fugees needed an outright win to advance; a tie or a loss would send them home. Luma gathered the Fugees before warm-ups to make sure they understood.

  “Play to the whistle,” she told them. “If the ref makes a bad call, you keep playing. Okay? You focus on the game and how you’re going to win it. Because if you don’t, we’re going to lose your last game of the season, and you’re going home early. And you’re going home to your parents, and you’re going to tell them you lost. You’ll go home to your brothers and sisters, and you’re going to tell them you lost.”

  Luma narrowed her eyes.

  “I’m not going home telling anyone I lost,” she said.

  Luma ran through the game plan. From watching the Fire warm up, she had already determined that their biggest threat was number 26—Jorge Pinzon. She wanted Grace to mark him and stay with him the whole game. The Fugees defense would play upfield, to try to pull the Fire offsides. Qendrim would dole out passes to Jeremiah and Josiah, and she expected them to shoot—a lot.

  Just before the whistle, some of the Fugees looked toward the sideline and saw a strange sight. A teacher from Josiah’s school had come to see him play. Some older refugee kids from the complexes in Clarkston had managed rides to the game, an hour away from Clarkston, and several volunteers from resettlement agencies showed up as well. For the first time all year, the Fugees had fans.

  The Fugees came out shooting. Shahir, the Fugees midfielder, blasted a shot that hit the left post and went wide. Josiah missed another, high. The Fugees had other opportunities—two free kicks and a handful of corner kicks—but time and again the plays were broken up by a ubiquitous presence for the Fire: Jorge. Pinzon was fast and amazingly determined. He fought for every ball, and didn’t hesitate to put his body at risk if he thought he could gain an advantage. He and Grace leaped in the air to control a high ball, and their skulls collided with a gruesome thud. Grace collapsed to the ground. But Jorge shook off the pain and kept playing.

  The Fugees, though, kept attacking. Their passes were sharp and controlled. With eight minutes left in the half and the score still tied at zero, Jeremiah Ziaty carved his way through the Fire defense at the top of the box. He pivoted and turned, and with his left and weaker foot, kicked a line drive that curved down just under the Fire goalie’s hands. It was a goal score. At the half, the Fugees led 1–0.

  Luma hurried her players into a huddle and began to tick through the adjustments she wanted. Bien was dribbling too much. Josiah needed to shoot more, and to keep the ball on the ground: the Fire defenders were taller than the Fugees, she said, and there was no point trying to fight with them for headers. Shahir had taken his first shot of the season—she wanted him to shoot more. She wanted her defense to play farther up the field, particularly on goal kicks; the Fire’s keeper had a weak leg, she said. She
told Jeremiah that he needed to concentrate on placing his corner kicks better. She reminded the boys that a one-goal lead was not enough. They needed two more, she said, and reminded them of the stakes.

  “You got thirty more minutes—thirty more minutes to decide if this is your last game or not,” she told them. “I can’t do it.”

  And there was one more adjustment. She wanted Robin Dikori, the Sudanese speedster, to take over Grace’s role in marking Jorge Pinzon.

  “Robin, number twenty-six is yours,” she said. “I don’t want him touching that ball.”

  In the second half, the Fugees let loose with another fusillade of shots—and misses. Jeremiah kicked one high. Bien missed one left. Josiah hit the crossbar. Grace set up Jeremiah on a perfect cross, but Jeremiah rushed the shot and missed again, this time wide right. It was as if there were some sort of force field in front of the Fire’s goal, deflecting the Fugees’ shots. Midway through the half, a Fire forward got behind the Fugees defense and began to charge the Fugees’ goal. Eldin, alone now at keeper, seemed unsure of what to do. He didn’t move out to cut off the attacker’s angle, but instead stood beneath the crossbar, waiting for the shot. When it finally came, Eldin froze, and the ball sailed past him, clean: goal. There was a roar from the sideline. The Fire parents had been joined by the players and parents of the team that stood to advance to the finals should the Fugees tie or lose. This newly formed coalition quickly drowned out the voices of the small group that had come out to support the Fugees.

  The Fugees, though, weren’t finished. They immediately charged down the field with a quick sequence of crisp passes through the heart of the Fire’s defense. Jeremiah again found himself with a clear shot, this time with his right foot. The ball sailed just high. The Fugees had now missed four shots in the second half alone. The Fire responded with an attack of their own. Again, the left forward for the Fire snuck in behind the Fugees defense and began to charge toward the goal. This time, Eldin came out to challenge. Hurried, the Fire player booted the shot but the ball flew wildly off course. Then, with fifteen minutes to go in the game, Josiah controlled a loose ball on the left side of the Fire’s goal. He tapped a pass to Jeremiah at the top of the box, and Jeremiah charged the goal at a full sprint. He took five steps and fired a shot just over the goalie’s head. The Fugees led again, 2–1.