Fútbol on the neutral ground
September 1, 2015 8:46 AM   Subscribe

In the new New Orleans, an international soccer hero hides in plain sight. There are many Tony Laings in New Orleans. You can find them on weekends in City Park, playing in the Spanish-speaking leagues that have boomed since Katrina; professional stars who once played before big crowds back home. Now they work construction jobs in America’s south, speaking a language the rest of the city doesn’t understand, living in the open, but hidden all the same. posted by tofu_crouton (3 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
I live in Mid-City / Faubourg St. John area here in New Orleans. My next door neighbor is Honduran, as are the folks who rent out the other side of his house. There's not a kid that leaves that building who's not wearing a football jersey. I see the games that happen almost daily over at Easton Park, and occasionally while driving down Marconi I see the streams of latinos heading into Tad Gormley for the bigger matches.

I guess I can see how someone in the Marigny or way Uptown might not share my experience but here in my neighborhood you'd have to be blind not to get the sense of how huge the football community is.

(though I will admit I don't follow soccer at all, only American football, so I had no idea who Tony Laing was until today)
posted by komara at 9:07 AM on September 1, 2015


Ha, I was wondering how long the thread could go before someone brought up the Saints. Anglo New Orleans is such a monoculture — in sports for sure, but in other ways besides sports, too; these burgeoning immigrant communities, of which there are several, don't seem to register much at all in locals' idea of what and who the city is, compared to other, and perhaps I'd say more genuinely cosmopolitan, cities. The whole Central American community in Kenner is truly invisible to the bulk of the city as far as I can tell. I mean, I lived there for years until recently and I only know it's there because I reflexively stop my car at any roadside sign for pupusas that I see. Literally no other English speaker in the city ever mentioned its existence to me.
posted by RogerB at 10:53 AM on September 1, 2015


Similarly, there was this article about ex-pros playing in NYC leagues from 2004. Is this common in cities in the U.S.
posted by Drab_Parts at 11:42 AM on September 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


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