# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Fútbol-spelled without the accent in Mexico-or futebol as it is known in Brazil, represents one of the most popular cultural institutions in Latin America. Whether played in the stadium or the barrio, the sport brings together millions, often serving as the common social bond in an otherwise diversely populated region.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Last Friday was my son's tenth birthday. A summer baby, he annually confronts the absence of routine, structure, and often friends in town during this, the best of seasons. If that last bit didn't give it away, I can relate because I, too, have a summer birthday, and so I usually compensate for us both by planning celebrations that capitalize on the best bits of the hot months, things like pools, water parks, and highly air conditioned movie theaters. When this year my son suggested we take him and a few buddies to an evening baseball game in high-tech, well-ventilated Marlins Park, I was thrilled.

The kid didn't even let us finish the sentence before he announced his decision: fútbol for sure. He remembered how in the last two World Cups (2018 and 2014), Colombia's games have magically dovetailed with the anniversary of his summer birth. Both times, Colombia has won, convincing this kid (who would say he's not superstitious but he's a little "stitious") that combining his special day to the game gives the players that extra vote of confidence that will push them toward victory.

In the past, he'd enlisted his younger brother's help in producing handmade signs and crafting cheers. He also tends to quickly invoke the family rule that stadium speak can include terms and formulations more vulgar than those of our regular life - swearing without consequences is a huge draw for a tween. But to trade in all the cotton candy, mystery dogs and popcorn so salty my kidneys contort at the thought for a more wholesome homemade party? A rowdy and reprimand-less mess for the constraints of having to party in his own home? Would he be satisfied by the birthday soccer-viewing experience?

For his father and I, and certainly for our parent's generation, holds an importance ascribed to few other phenomena, which moves far more millions of dollars around and influences the aspirations of so many people worldwide. We all grew up in a country in which these effects of an organized sport on the life and culture of entire nations was palpable in every walk of life and across the rigidly divided social classes. At the stadium, everyone feels equal, as individuals become a unit: or the cheering squad. The players on the field run and score, all eyes and hearts stay with their stats and their stories, like gladiators of a democratic moment that only exists beyond the reach of government and dissolves into the ether when the stands empty out into the city streets.

Much like basketball fits the topography of an American city, with its fenced in concrete courts and conservative team sizes, easily scaled as far down as a pick-up game of just one on one, so, too, is soccer the game that best suits packs of numerous youth in rural and underserved regions. is the most popular in Europe, where the soccer clubs have the cash to train amazing athletes and to recruit more amazing athletes from Latin America, Asia, and Africa. It is also the most popular sport in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, where one soccer ball and an open, bare space can entertain up to 22 young people at a time, making use of the rural or under-built spaces they inhabit and requiring little to no additional equipment, in many cases not even a pair of shoes.

Playing soccer professionally is aspirational, one of the only ways in which some of these nations are positively represented, the only route for certain young men to escape poverty. Players since the great Pelé of Brazil, inclusive of so many others since him, many of them stars of national line-ups who play for European clubs during the year, were made on their native streets, learning to dribble and shoot barefoot. Following the black-and-white ball all the way out of the or has been a decidedly positive recourse for many individuals from Latin America, who have shared their world renown, mentorship, and fortune with their country. Nations that tend to appear within headlines over negative news stories about unstable governments or crime and inequality, can shine in their role on this particular playing field.

All of this good press and transcending our human condition has been a positive outlet for many developing nations, no doubt, but to think that this particular playing field is completely even would be naive. in its major-league, life-altering, nation-driving applications has drummed up a lot of positivity, yes, though its ability to influence economies and politics has also produced some toxic side-effects. Beginning with its regulating body, is an organization based out of politically neutral, financially discreet Switzerland, headed up by...you guessed it: a panel of older, white males. A bunch of white guys move around a ton of funds to engage a motley crew, including lots of brown guys, to play for the amusement of the world television viewers. This lucrative enterprise is not always pure.

Whatever positive press a winning soccer team's performance on the world stage can bring, this perpetuation of social and economic inequality lies in contradiction to the machinery of democracy. In the opinion of Mexican economists, the United States has solved this underlying problem of disparate earning potentials by recruiting professional players through a more egalitarian "draft" method and placing earning caps on players, for example on David Beckham, brought in to elevate, not bankrupt, the Los Angeles Astros. Despite the American's lower enthusiasm towards soccer than that of most other nations, the lessons of politics applied here hold up: the more equal treatment and compensation of players, the more that pitch gets leveled, every player given equal opportunity to dazzle the fans.

And while the sporting events are certainly highly lucrative, such as the large subsidy Brazil received for the construction of World Cup infrastructure, the clear winners in these cases are the big builders and contractors, not the developing nation or its citizens. Some of the players are disadvantaged kids who strike it big, yes, but the percentage of people who will get ahead through a career in soccer is minute compared to those who will be receive a sort of mass hypnosis as they experience an adrenaline rush and catharsis through their national sports team, a virtual experience with little lasting psychological or sociological value, according to German journalist and philologist, Santiago Flores Alvarez-Ossorio .

Perhaps most obvious to us is the historical exclusion of one half of the population from the soccer pitch. None of the leagues on any of the continents featured female players until FIFA made space for the national women's leagues that now play in the Women's Cup, also held every four years. Despite the widespread fandom amongst women, 46% of us worldwide identifying as fiercely passionate about our local or national team, we didn't have a stage for our own fancy footwork until 1991 saw China host the first female tournament. Since then, the Women's Cup has grown exponentially, in viewership, participation, and revenue production.

Just as in the may other realms in which women are capable of holding their own just as well as men, the world of is built around a gender inequality that governs a large pay gap that favors men at the individual, team, and national levels. Even less inspiring is the trend that has only widened the gap in recent years. Even though the women's teams bring in more fans each day, everything from player salaries to the prize money for the winners of the women's and men's Cup has only grown more disparate. Individual players of international renown earn a fraction of what their male counterparts are awarded. , who started clamoring for pay equality back in the 1990s when she was helping the USA team bring home trophies, now stands by Megan Rapinoe, Carli Lloyd, and Alex Morgan, who are so underpaid they have been able to bring a suit against the US Soccer Federation.

Of course, it isn't just FIFA who pays women less; the is wide and real between women and men across sports. Women in the league continue to make their case for pay equality and to provide representation, with many of them playing the kind of world-class soccer that makes men famous Women have demonstrated their on the pitch, setting records as impressive as the men's. The only real difference seems to be how hard they have to work at being supported, respected, taken seriously, and paid their worth.

By the time our son was done saying he'd rather watch the Colombia game, I had already planned to mix a batch of his favorite cereal and marshmallow bars (instead of a more labor-intensive cake), with guayaba y queso in honor of That night, despite his track record as a good luck charm, my Colombo-American kid could not save our country from their curse of always losing to Chile on the pitch. "Like the curse of the Bambino on the Sox," remarked my baseball fan. "It might ok that Colombia lost," he said later that week when I shared my annoyance that held concurrently with the Copa América finals, relieved that he can now root for his other team, the women's team USA, in their match on Saturday.

For Image credit or remove please email for immediate removal - info@belatina.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Close Look at How Fútbol Shapes Our Culture

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Understanding the historical, social and cultural passion for fútbol, which is as much a sport in Latin America as it is a reflection of society.

# data[].attributes.headline
#3 Afro-Latino futbolistas famous for their... afros 

# data[].attributes.subject
#3 Afro-Latino futbolistas famous for their... afros 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Indisputable fact: soccer players have the best hair in the entire sports world. Amongst the many iconic hair styles that have bounced across the pitch, the Afro - a look imbued with the weight of identity politics in the early 70s, and eventually so popular people of many races began to embrace it - is by far the most fly.

We took a little trip down memory lane to look at the Latin American futbolistas who sported it best.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Flyest Afros in Latin-American Soccer History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Indisputable fact: soccer players have the best hair in the entire sports world. Amongst the many iconic hair styles that have bounced across the pitch, the Afro - a look imbued with the weight of identity politics in the early 70s, and eventually so popular people of many races began to embrace it - is by far the most fly.