A public service announcement done by Louisville soccer coach Ken Lolla in 2010 laid the groundwork for the team’s spring break plans this month.
Already in the middle of planning a trip to Brazil – one that was supposed to be mostly about soccer – Lolla filmed a PSA for Edge Outreach, a Louisville-based nonprofit devoted to helping promote good hygiene and clean drinking water across the globe.
Lolla came away from that experience moved, and decided that the trip, which the team took last week, wouldn’t be just about soccer. They would also work together with Edge Outreach and various groups to educate and improve the lives of those living down in Brazil in areas without a clean, reliable access to water.
Both the soccer and the opportunity to better the lives of impoverished Brazilians generated excitement before the trip.
“There was a genuine excitement on both ends – an enjoyment of both aspects,” Lolla told MLSsoccer.com. “The community outreach part, going into it, I don’t think they really understood the impact they were going to have.”
It wouldn’t take long for the team to understand the difference they could make. The soccer team headed down to São Paulo armed with two of the water systems that Edge Outreach uses. They played a handful of matches while also educating children in the community about hygiene and how to use the machines.
One of those systems was sent in advance to a medical boat working along the Amazon River. The other went to São Paulo, where the team taught people how to use it and then take that expertise into more rural areas.
For one day, part of the team also put on a day-long soccer clinic at an academy set up by former Chelsea, Barcelona and Portugal national-team star Deco, and also taught hygiene to the kids afterward. That was a particularly moving experience for those involved.
“To a player, when we reflected on the trip, they said that was one of the highlights of the trip for sure,” Lolla said.
After departing São Paulo, Louisville headed to Rio de Janeiro for a more relaxing leg of the trip and to play a couple more games. They had a chance to play some beach soccer and also faced the U-20 teams of Flamengo and Fluminense.
Playing Brazilian opposition provided a much different opponent than the NCAA runners-up are used to. That, and the fact that they didn’t have a lot of time between games, made it a challenging experience from a playing respect.
“The games were very valuable because they were different,” Lolla said. “The level of play was quite good, and then the style was different. It forced us to do things a little bit differently, having played basically five games in ten days, many times in hot weather.”
Not only did the trip offer the opportunity to play against teams and professionals from Brazil, but also it was a chance to witness firsthand how passionate the country is about the sport.
“From a soccer standpoint, as much as they understood what Brazilian soccer is like, what impacted them was how passionate, how much of the life and the culture it is down there and what it means to the country,” Lolla said.
