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Functional fútbal
BY SAM PFEIFLE
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For all the press football, baseball, and basketball get both nationally and locally, there’s still no denying that the most-played sport in America is soccer, and Portland doesn’t buck the trend. From an over-30 men’s league that features eight teams playing every Sunday throughout the summer to Portland Youth Soccer, which seems to set up fields on any spare patch of green space they can find, to pickup games that run just about continuously at the Back Cove fields, people are playing the game everywhere you look. And Portland’s burgeoning immigrant population is only adding to the popularity of the sport; the passion for "the world’s game" is well known throughout Africa and Latin America. Capitalizing on all this is Portland’s HIV/STD Program, which this Saturday, July 16, will hold their second annual Latino Soccer Tournament, on the Fox Street field, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nelida Berke, one of the organizers, says the tournament has grown from six to eight teams in just the one year, and that interest is strong not only locally but throughout the region. "Many people from Boston are coming from this event," she says. "They’re on the rosters. I didn’t know they were going to come." So why do this? It’s the old trick-them-into-learning strategy. "As a Latina," says Berke, "I know that all the Latinos love soccer, it’s part of our culture, so it’s a way to get them to all come to one place," and then they can drop the whammy with interspersed messages about public health and STD prevention passed along between games. That’s not all. The event will kick off with a parade of Latin nations of sorts, with local "madrinas" carrying 18 Latin flags and marching with the captains of the participating teams. Also, La Bodega Latina will be providing free finger foods and drinks for players and spectators alike. Tournament winners will receive donated prizes and become eligible for yet another International Soccer Tournament, which will pit teams with players hailing from Somalia, Sudan, Cambodia, and elsewhere, again in the name of promoting both community and public health.
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