This is not just any cancha, this is a big cancha, even though "La pelouse" (the green) is made out of sand.
Guédiawaye is a city outside of Dakar, the capital of Senegal. From La Place de l'Independence you can take city bus number 2 to the very end. 150 F CFA and about 2h later (it depends on the traffic) you will be close to this place, where you are guaranteed to find soccer buddies at any hour.
A couple of weekends ago, I had the chance to be guided through the streets of the popular Adjame market in Abidjan by a friend who lives there. I really enjoyed our Sunday afternoon walk, and not only because I love street markets, but also because there were a lot of other things happening in the street. Such as football games on every block. Here are a few of them, including a poster of the 2010 World Cup in the background:
Canchas is Spanish for "soccer fields" and denotes the spontaneous playgrounds where we all play our favourite game. Canchas is also the name of an open project and platform, where the spontanoues soccer fields and their human stories play the lead role.
Everybody can join this project through the portal www.canchas.org and browse the amazing landscape of human soccer stories in more than 100 countries. Pictures, audio and video material presenting soccer fields close to the North Pole in Greenland, on house boats in Vietnam, in German cities, under Argentinien highways, in the Mauretanian desert or just next to the huge stadion they are constructing for the World Cup 2010 in Cape Town. Next year will be a year of international soccer and for the first time the World Cup will be held on the African continent.
Time for Canchas and Maneno to join hands to present our continent in all its varieties and languages, to present it through all of you and personal authentic stories, far from the prejudices and media presentations that prevail. We "celebrate", as one of the mottos of Canchas, humanity and its culture. Soccer as an international language is just the beautiful excuse to do so.
The Canchas-Maneno-Blog will slowly start in the next weeks to launch with full power in January 2010 --> get prepared and start scouting in your area for crazy, beautiful or just the most common soccer grounds and their stories! We will also feature competitions and other extras!
Links:
Below please find a series of canchas from various countries:
