Seite - 39 - in Hanadi & Christian - English

5 10 15 20 25 30 35 39 We’ll show them how we play football over here. It’s been a long time since we had a team in the borough leagues.” says Chema. “With the girls?” asks Kevin, looking at Silvia out of the corner of his eye. “Of course.” I say, supporting Silvia. She supported me at the beginning so I feel like I owe her something. With the players we have now, we can only play amongst ourselves, and we’re always playing the same people. If we wanted to have two five-a-side teams for the borough league, we would need 16 players since the rules establish a minimum of 8 and a maximum of 10 players per team. Without the girls, there would be 13 players. So, if we set up just one five-a-side team, we would be leaving three players out and we wouldn’t be able to play eleven-a-side because each team must have a minimum of 15 players. I think it would be better if we created one team with the different teams you have now.” “But then we wouldn’t have our own team anymore.” says Kevin. “No,” says Silvia, looking at me in a strange way, somehow both grateful and nervous. “we don’t have to get rid of our team in the internal league, but we can form a new team that includes all of us, and then we can participate in the borough league.” “But we can’t be on both teams.” Juan Carlos says. “Why not?” I ask. “When we play in the internal league, we will all play on our own local teams, but when we play in the borough league, we will all play on the same team and contribute our differ- ent playing styles.” “Sure.” says Chema. “That way you can all learn from each oth- er. If you only play on your local teams, you will always do the same things, but when you join up in the global team, we’ll have more possibilities.” I walk home happy. It looks like I will be able to play with my friends and with the rest of the Ecuadorians. But even though I agree with Chema and Silvia, I am not sure that even they really believed what they said. Even though I’m happy, I still wonder if having bigger teams might bring more problems.