Thread: Sports Highlights from Athens GA

onlineathens.com/stories/http://060806/news_20060608082.shtml
Playing in a league of their own
Latin americans bring a love of soccer, home countries to athens

A crowd of approximately 250 spectators came out to watch and cheer as the Guanajuato team defeated team San Joaquin 1-0 in the New Generation Soccer League championship match at Southeast Clarke Park last weekend. Men from several Latin American countries ranging from ages 15 to 45 play in the 10-team league.
Caleb Raynor/Staff

Members of team San Joaquin catch their breath and strategize during halftime.
Caleb Raynor/Staff

Team Guanajuato goalkeeper Javier Duarte jumps to make a save and secure a 1-0 lead against team San Joaquin in the second half of the New Generation Soccer League's championship match at Southeast Clarke Park last weekend.
Caleb Raynor/Staff
By Merritt Melancon | juliana.melancon@onlineathens.com | Story updated at 2:16 AM on Thursday, June 8, 2006
Fifteen minutes before the match to decide which team would take the championship cup for the New Generation Soccer League this season, Coach Alidio Martinez is giving his 16 players a little pep talk.

He's telling team San Joaquin in a Guatemalan dialect of Spanish to play like they've played all season - just punch it up a bit. After all, this game is for the title; it's for the pride of the tournament cup; and it's for Guatemala.

In its fourth summer of play, the 200-player New Generation Soccer League brings together many players, including plumbers, builders, landscapers, waiters, heavy equipment operators and chicken plant workers from Mexico and other Latin American countries who share a passion for soccer and the need for something to do on Sunday afternoons.

In most Latin American countries, soccer is more than the most popular sport. It's a true national pastime, and even the smallest of towns have at least one adult amateur team to play against the team in the next town. As the population of Hispanics reached 10 percent of Clarke County's population, the interest in Latin American-style soccer leagues grew, too, bringing the same tradition of neighborly rivalry to Athens.

The 200 or so men playing in the league range in age from 15 to 45 and vary in skill level, but every Sunday afternoon during the league's three-month season, their supporters, friends and family members pack the soccer fields at Southeast Clarke Park to watch them play.

During regular season play, there may be only 50 spectators, but during the finals and for Saturday's championship game, about 250 people came out to support their favorite teams and the country they represent. The organizers conduct two three-month seasons every year, yielding two league championship tournaments, two championship teams and two sets of championship festivities a year.

"It gives us something to do on Sunday afternoon," said Marco Cruz, the league's organizer. "It's much better than sitting at home, better than spending the weekend drinking."

The Athens area has had amateur adult soccer leagues for several years; there are leagues at Holland Youth Sports Complex in north Athens, in Greensboro and in Gainesville.

Most of the teams in the New Generation Soccer League are made up of men from Mexico, but two of the 10 teams represent El Salvador and one, Martinez's, represents Guatemala.

As fans from soccer-obsessed countries wait for Friday's start of the FIFA World Cup, the New Generation Soccer League gives them a way to celebrate their sport and cheer for their country in an international rivalry, even a half a world away from Germany, the site of this year's World Cup.

No Guatemalan team ever has made it to the FIFA World Cup, but that just makes Martinez's team members more eager to defend their country's soccer prowess, Martinez said.

According to Cruz, "It's always best when you've got a team from one country playing a team from another country. It makes them play harder, because there's a lot of competition there, but it's a friendly kind of competition."

Last weekend, Martinez's San Joaquin team took on Guanajuato, a team made up of Mexican men from Athens, Winder, Atlanta and Gainesville, for the tournament championship.

Mexico, with a large country to draw players from, qualifies for World Cup play each time the tournament is held, every four years. Though Guanajuato's success matches the success of the players' home country - the local team won six of the eight New Generation championship matches over the last four years - San Joaquin beat Guanajuato earlier this season 3-0. San Joaquin also beat out Guanajuato for the championship at the end of last summer's second season.

The rivalry between the perennially successful Mexican team and the defending champions from Guatemala packed the soccer fields Saturday with spectators and players from teams shut out of the finals earlier in the tournament.

League organizers trucked in a sound system to pump high-energy dance music onto the field, and people ate picnic dinners while they cheered from the sidelines.

"I came back out because this is going to be a good game," said one of the game's spectators, who played with an El Salvadoran team before it was knocked out of the tournament last month.

After two hours of hard play, loud music and several out-of-bounds soccer balls returned by players in a neighboring softball game, Guanajuato overcame San Joaquin 1-0. It's a defeat that will stick with San Joaquin before the next tournament season begins at the end of June, when the players will pull out their jerseys, raise their entry fee, head back out to the field and hope for the best.

Even though the league concluded a season with this tournament last weekend, another season will begin in two weeks and the next league championship will be held in late August or early September, Cruz said.

Now, more than ever, I am so glad I have never been a fan of soccer.

Never cared for soccer either. I'm a college football (real smash mouth football) fan myself.