The Game, El Juncal

A north Andean town in Ecuador, with a majority black population, was finally acknowledged thanks to the National Soccer Selection that participated in the 2002 World Cup. Here is the principal seed bed where close to a hundred children seek here the traces of the first division soccer team. In the town of Juncal, 100 km. north of Quito, the small soccer players, in addition to going to school, from a young age work drying grains and taking the cows to pasture under an embracing sun. Such activities are characteristic of this fertile valley named “El Chota” where one has the option of becoming an agriculturalist or a soccer player. In the middle of the dusty, narrow streets, children without shoes or with shoes cut out in the back, play out their dreams with a soccer net and goal markers in imitation of the main idols who not long ago were their neighbours or relatives or members of their block. Afternoons are pure soccer. Filled with soccer stories, they move towards the main field of the town, “la Playa”, under the bridge where the Panamerican highway crosses. From three in the afternoon they play on the edge of the Chota river that serves as a natural bath since they can throw themselves in after the game, along the large rocks where in the morning their mothers wash their clothes and kitchenware as there is little potable water in the town. This is the rhythym of life in Juncal having become a key place for Ecuadorian soccer.