Utes in Uruguay: Now That is Some Hospitality!

After the game was over and a quick clean up, the team headed to CA River Plate, a local 1st Division club. The Uruguayan federation was very kind to hold a parillada, or BBQ. We went to the club meeting room and were greeted by the Uruguayan players, coaches, representatives of the federation and the staff of the River Plate club. The players sat at long tables across from each other and immediately hit it off. There was lots of laughing and joking, some trading of jerseys and back packs, etc. And some stories about life in each other's country. After a wonderful meal, Jorge Burgell, the president of the Uruguayan women's soccer federation, presented a uniform to our team and handed it to Paolo Marsenaro, our very own Uruguayan! He thanked us for the game and wished us well in the future. We had a traditional dessert, which had some citrus fruit covered with ice cream and pastry covering on the outside.

Then, Katie Brower, had to get up and do a dance as she had forgotten the soccer balls at the hotel before the first game. Katie got up to do her dance and asked for some music. Alyssa Toomey volunteered to help her out. Alyssa did her best imitation of Shakira and belted out "Hips Don't Lie" as she and Katie danced away! We have video footage of it all!

After dessert, both teams headed out to the field for some last photos and said "Ciao". We couldn't have had more gracious hosts!
Some other notes from the day:

Finally, A Home Game
The match marked only the third time ever that the Uruguayan women have hosted a game against a foreign team. The had greeted a select team from Venezuela and a club team from Argentina before this match. They were so excited to have the home game they made it a first-class affair. We played in the 2nd best stadium...and, in fact, almost got to play in the Centenario Stadium...the sight of the first World Cup...but a concert last week had ruined the field at the Centenario.

Training for the game
One of the most special things of the day was to see how seriously the Uruguayan team took the whole affair. They are in the middle of the summer break. Many of the players are working jobs. Their soccer clubs are not in season until April. So they trained for 5 weeks (on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings) just for this game.

Might As Well Help Out the Air Force Academy In My Spare Time
The Uruguayan coach, Alejandro Delatorre, has many hats to wear. He is a math teacher in the mornings. He coaches the women's team three evenings a week. And in his spare time, he coaches the Air Force Academy's university team on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Busy guy!

Can You Spare Some Players?
Uruguay is definitely up against it, both on the men's and women's side of soccer, when it comes to competing with the powers in South America. Uruguay has a population of 3 million people...very similar to that of Utah. Contrast that with Brazil, which has 250 million, or Argentina, with over 38 million...might be an explanation of some of the challenges the Urugayans face in growing their women's program.