Juan Chamás
26/05/2011
English
Feature Article
It’s a soccer phenomenon! All soccer coaches agree on that! She plays soccer since she was 10 years old, but has practiced many other sports since she was born. Probably the most important ones for what she is today were gymnastics and ballet, since both of them gave her agility, coordination and strength: vital characteristics for a soccer defense. Anyways she has also practiced many other sports such as: horse back riding, vaulting, water skiing, swimming, and tennis.
She was born on April 20, 1995 in the city of Bogotá, Colombia. At the time, she was blonde, fat, cute, with brown eyes and of white color. People who saw her for just a moment thought she was a doll. Her first years where incredible everything was extraordinary in her life, but as she grew up she encountered one problem, her brothers health. It would only be during certain stage of her life, but it would be one fall after another. When she was really small during the first four years of her life. Juan, her brother, faced several surgeries, but of course she wouldn’t notice this, or care about it. As time passed she got older and things where OK, but at the age of 10 her brother again had several surgeries. These where spread during a period of five years, which where really hard for her since she suffered a lot for her brother knowing she couldn’t do anything at all.
That stage of her life was marked by these incidents that close family members had faced. It was extremely hard since during two consecutive years on the day of her birthday her brother had surgery. Finally her brother again got stable and needed no more surgeries, which was an excellent thing for her since she suffered so much, for this reason. Even though this had been extremely hard for her, it helped her a lot since she learned how to appreciate things most people take for granted such as health, love and solidarity. In addition she became a better person and began to be able to help others with their problems since she was inside the small group of people that had faced problems before, and could understand how others felt.
Since the moment she entered the soccer team, the coach was fascinated by the way she played. She had an enormous talent and was an excellent leader, which made her better for the position she plays. She entered the team in sixth grade and was trained by Prof who made her be in the initial 11, without paying attention to the fact that she was the youngest player in the team. That year, the team came in second place after loosing the final by a score of two to one. An important fact was that Cristina had to be taken out of the game because of an injury, after she had been taken out, the other team scored the two goals. And that was her first year in the soccer team.
Her second year in the world of soccer at a school level would be decisive for her. This was due to the fact that ¨ Prof ¨ decided to place her as a central defense, the position she would be occupying for a long period of time. Here, she would demonstrate her abilities, and the fact that she was excellent since she was: fast, agile, strong, and careful when she had to deal with being the last stronghold of the team, because if the last defense commits fault it is a red card for sure. That year they would end up in fourth place of the Uncoli Tournament, but won the Peoples Play tournament, being the team who had the least goals scored against, as well as winning the prize as best defense player of the tournament.
As Cristina rounded her third year, she would reach her soccer-playing peak. She was twelve years old, she would play as a central defense and be an extremely important player for the years to come. She would be captain of the team that won the Uncoli Championship as well as the Binationals with the three main pillars being Andrea Copello, Gabriela Maldonado, and herself with an incredible leadership that would unite the team as well. She would win the respect of her coaches and teammates with her way of playing, her aggressive attitude, and an incredible throw from the sideline. The most important aspect of her leadership was cheering up her team in the difficult moments when without a leader, a team collapses. That year was her best as a soccer player she won all the tournaments she disputed and was captain of that team as well as the moral leader. It was also her last year under the command of ¨ prof ¨ who would get the best out of her and help her in an incredible way for her to win the confidence of Oscar her new soccer coach the one of the oldest team in the school.
When Cristina entered 9th grade she was the only girl of her grade that was able to go to binationals with the soccer team. It wasn’t only going to binationals that was awesome, it was even more important that she actually played every single game they disputed. She took turns with Alejandra Moncaleano being the goalies and defense. But these binationals would bring back hard times to Cristina’s life, since when she was playing the final she changed places with Alejandra and went to the field to play as defense. Ten minutes hadn’t passed, when returning from an offensive play she injured her knee severely, and broke her (Ligamento Cruzado).
This injury in binationals when she was in ninth grade and was fourteen years old would mark her life forever. At the moment she was told she wouldn’t be able to play for about one year, this meant an incredible blow for her since she had made soccer one of the most important activities of her life, if it wasn’t the most important one. Hard times were back, she would be obliged not to touch a soccer ball for at least one year as well as doing physical therapy every single day, for it to be possible for her to play again. It was probably the worst year of her entire life since she would never be or will ever be ready for this kind of physical and psychological blow.
After one long and hard year of recovering from her knee accident, Cristina was able to play soccer again, in November of last year. It was one of the happiest days for all our family members since it was seeing Cristina smiling again while she played soccer: her favorite activity. Later this nightmare would recur to haunt the family, only four months after she began playing, it broke again. This time it was to be much worse, when we got to the doctor and he examined her he asked us to please have her do the medical exams, which meant he had a doubt about the real state of her knee.
She took the exams and the worst fear, became reality: she had injured her knee again. The difference between this time and the past one was vital. The first time she had chances of it getting sealed alone, this time that wouldn’t occur and for it to cure she needs surgery. The problem with this is that the surgery can only be done after she has stopped growing completely, or else one leg can end up longer than the other one. Which is a risk no one would ever take. After all she wont be able to practice her favorite activity for an estimated period of two to three years; it sounds as if it was a small period of time, but taking into account she is in 10th grade, this period of time might mean she wont play soccer again with the school, and probably for her life.
