When you are 14 and you live in the Dominican Republic there’s one important thing you need to do that if like soccer. We called that thing “Coca Cola Cup”. That cup is the most important for the school kids for all over the country. If you win it you will be one of the few kids with the opportunity of going to the “Coca Cola Cup” in other countries. Your school will never forget that you were one of the 17 kids that won the cup.

Like every kid that has played soccer in my school, I had the opportunity of playing in the “Coca Cola Cup” but I got the opportunity to play when I was 13. In that team full of bigger kids than me, I was always in the starting eleven, playing all the games entirely. In that I wasn’t the most important player but I was the striker and sometimes the center midfielder. We were favorites for winning the cup that year. But we lost 1-0 in the quarter finals vs. LaSalle School, one of the best scholar soccer teams in the Dominican Republic. We were really sad that we had so many chances to win that game and the cup, but we didn’t take them.

The next year I was 14 and all the players on my team were new in the cup, I was the only one that played last year in that cup, so I was like the non-official captain until we had chosen one. We were practicing very hard, 3 days a week for 4 hours. At the end of the day we were tired but we were ready for the “Coca Cola Cup” to start. It was Saturday and our first game was on Monday. I was excited and I had trust in my team. The days passed and finally it was Monday, I was in school with all my team taking classes, when someone called us from the speakers. It was time, we were getting out of classes to get ready for the game and go to the bus that was going to leave us at the tournament stadium. In the ride to the stadium the whole team was in complete silence. We were ready but also nervous because it was our first game. What was going to happen? The time passed and we were changing in the changing rooms of the stadium. Suddenly they were calling us to go out, the game was about to start. We came out in a line with the others team players at our side. The whistle blows and the game starts. We were dominating, the possession was like 90% for us, and the only tie they got to touch the ball was for taking it out of their goal. The whistle blows again and the game finishes 13-0. We did it. We did not only win our first game, we destroyed our first victim.

More days like those followed, training, destroying teams. We were favorites to win, every team feared us. Game by game our confidence was growing we were in the quarterfinals already, but this time we were going to vs. the Loyola school. The final whistle blows again and the score is 6-0 to our favor. We did it, we reach the semifinals. We trained harder than ever before, we were the first soccer team in my school that reached a semifinal, but that was not enough, we were going for all. But if we wanted to reach the final, we needed to beat our worst enemy, “La Salle School”.

The whole team was afraid, I was afraid I haven’t forgot that lost in the quarterfinals of the last year. I was a nervous, does the story was going to repeat? I was going to let that happen. It was a tough game, we both have many chances of scoring, and the final score was 1-1. We were going to penalties. Surprisingly we won on penalties, we were making history in our school we were the first ones to go to a “Coca Cola Cup” final.

We were one step closer to complete our dreams, to make them reality. I haven’t been so exited in my entire life I was ready to fight and to bring that cup to my school.