No Brazilians on the same team - LaGrange, Illinois

I signed my kids up for the Chicago Fire soccer camp this week. The Fire is the local MLS team, and they run an hour-and-a-half five-day camp in the late afternoons. Yesterday the local temperature at 5 pm was 90 degrees. The group that my kids are in is coached by two British young men (age 25?) and has perhaps 12 kids. Both of my guys are loving it.

I noticed right away that the kids had been placed on different teams for scrimmages. I asked the boys about it and they said that the second rule of Chicago Fire soccer is "No Brazilians on the same team." I failed to ask about rule 1. I wonder if this was their creative answer to "No brothers on the same team".

I love that they are on different teams--one of my sons was born kicking a soccer ball but the other struggles with the required skills. In this shot, the less-experienced son is directly behind the coach and he is leaping over the ball, doing a little dance complete with arm windmills to try to "fool" the other side. His teammate, the little girl in blue, is in simple shock. The coach really doesn't know what to say. I am laughing so hard that this is the only clear shot and not a good one. (By the way, the little blond is not mine--my blond would rather die than wear sunglasses on the soccer field).

I am hoping that my son's dance moves over the soccer ball come back to Brazil, where "football" is known as the "beautiful game." Certainly his opponents, all Brazilians on the same team, will be impressed.