UB vs UCA: Final score 1-1

As of March intense Wednesday only practices started for the women's soccer team at La Universidad de Belgrano, and on Saturday March 26th the first tournament was scheduled. We practice in the semi-pro "cancha" (field) of the Excursionistas and our tournaments are hosted by La Universidad de San Andrés in San Isidro. The team consists of 20 girls from all over the world, which is drastically different from last year’s 8 members. The bulk of the team is from Ecuador, where women's soccer is more accepted than here in Buenos Aires, and the US, where women's soccer is one of the most played sports by females. Also in the mix are a handful of girls from Buenos Aires, a girl from Italy, one from France, and one from Canada. As we are a very international team, we will see later on that communication proved to be our only defect in our first game.

Around 10:30 in the morning twenty some international female football players crammed into cars and headed to La Universidad de San Andres, to play our first soccer game. On this beautiful fall day we were scheduled to play La UCA (Universidad Católica de Argentina), which is a university located in the neighborhood of Puerto Madero in the southern part of the capital city. The tournament consists of 9 teams that play 8-on-8 for two 30-minute halves. As you've probably noted from some of my sarcasm above, that this team is more for fun than for competition, and fun we had. Just about every 5 min or so we were subbing and exchanging players on the field so that everyone could play in that first game. This made it hard for us to get into the game, because no one was in for more than 10 minutes at a time. Also, we are all learning the language of soccer/fútbol so that we can communicate on the field. Anyone who's played sports, knows that the single most important aspect of the game is communication, well it was there, just in two, three, or sometimes four languages.

In the end we tied UCA 1-1 and all made the collective decision to split up the team each week and take only 12 or so players so that we can get the most out of our experience. For me the team has been a great opportunity to play one of my favorite sports, but more importantly it's been a great opportunity to make friends. Outside of our rigorous one-day a week practices, we've been meeting in parks to play during the week, and enjoying the city of Buenos Aires together during the weekends. As I write the girls are playing La Universidad de Palermo, so hopefully I'll have some positive results to post in the future.