He played soccer at recess, in the backyard, in the church parking lot with boys from the neighborhood, at night, on weekends, whenever he could.
“We were just a bunch of kids,†Phuc Ninh says. “We didn’t have anything because our parents were from another country.â€
Vietnam. Cambodia. Kosovo. Sudan. Nigeria. Bosnia. Iraq. Mexico.
Phuc’s father had been an officer in the South Vietnamese army, committed to a re-education camp, unable to get a job in the communist country when he was released.
The family came here as political refugees in 1995.
Five years later, Phuc met a man from Pakistan, a husband and father, a world traveler, a man of faith.
His name was Joseph Rafique. He’d played soccer in school. He coached YMCA soccer now.
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And he wanted to start another team and fill it with soccer players from around the world. Players who’d settled with their families in Lincoln, getting a new start free from war and violence, playing side by side with their American neighbors.
He wanted to call it Brothers Eleven.
“Helping kids grow in love and respect for each other and for each other’s culture, faith and race,â€Â Rafique told a reporter in 2001.
That was his dream.
Eleven -- for the number of players on the field at one time. Brothers -- because that’s what he hoped they’d become.
“I tell them again and again,†the coach said then. “‘We are all brothers. We are all one.’â€
Phuc is a quality assurance manager at Smart Chicken in Waverly now, his Brothers Eleven years far behind him.
He remembers how Rafique recruited his younger brother to play soccer, too. And his friends from the neighborhood. How he’d pick them up for games in a battered Dodge van, drive them to tournaments out of town.
“It was great for us and it was an opportunity we really didn’t have and our parents couldn’t afford.â€
And he remembers the coach looking at his feet and his hand-me-down cleats.
“Or maybe I didn’t even have cleats, I don’t remember, but the fondest memory I have of him, he took me to a store and bought me a new pair. He did that for me.â€
Last week, Phuc made plans to attend the Brothers Eleven reunion at Aldersgate United Methodist Church, where his coach now is a pastor.
The invitation went out to all the players the coach could find. Pizza and pop and catching up, Saturday, 11 a.m.
But Phuc was pretty sure there would be a field outside the church.
And he was pretty sure there’d be a ball.
And if there was, he was pretty sure there’d be a game.
* * *
“As you eat, think of some memorable events that took place at our practice time, or game time.â€
The pizza has arrived from Papa John’s.
The players around the table -- Phuc, Minh, Genesis, Asmir, Jasmin, Alen, Shlovan, Salem Hope, Suvad, Linh, Emily, James -- listen to their old coach.
They are young men now. A few are fathers. A few are girls. Emily Sy played for one of Rafique’s girls’ teams, but on Brothers Eleven, too.
They are working or going to school, or both.
They still love soccer, the world’s sport, a game many learned in their home countries from fathers and older brothers.
“I remember you used to get mad at us for scoring too many goals,†says Alen Donlic, a refugee from Bosnia who owns his own business now.
“I remember you were driving the red car and you backed up into a van,†says Shlovan Saleh, 20.
Everyone laughs.
Rafique remembers that, too.
Hope Npimnee remembers one of the moves the small muscular coach taught them -- tap the ball one way, kick it the other. He remembers when Shlovan used it on him when they both played high school soccer. Hope at Lincoln High, Shlovan at Northeast.
“It took me back so many years,†he says.
A few months ago, the mother of one of the former soccer players dug out an old team photo, like the photos displayed on a table by the door, grade school kids in their soccer shirts, kicking balls, posing, digging into boxes of Papa John’s pizza at a party.
She showed it to Rafique, and he started thinking about those boys, what had become of them.
He knew Badum Maaloo was playing in Germany, that Adam Young had played in Spain.
Some of the other boys, he bumped into around town. At Best Buy. At the grocery store.
“I went to DaVinci’s a few weeks ago and saw a player there.â€
In 2004, after winning the Lincoln Cup, a prestigious tournament that attracted teams from all over the region, the Brothers Eleven disbanded.
“I thought, ‘Maybe this is the highlight of coaching soccer,’†said Rafique, now 57.
Some of his older players had moved on to high school.
His second daughter had been born by then, followed a few years later by a son. He’d been working in the multicultural wing of the United Methodist Church, running an after-school program and assisting at the YMCA Youth Academy while he coached.
And in 2005, the ordained minister put in his application to pastor a church.
He’s been preaching ever since. In Lincoln, Roca, Pleasant Dale.
He started at Aldersgate this summer; that’s when he started tracking down his old players.
On Saturday, he remembers scouting them, boys on a field at Peter Pan Park, boys dribbling a ball in a church parking lot.
Asking if he could play, too.
And could he ever play, wearing a cross around his neck and sandals on his feet.
He knew how to field a team, too.
“I associated it with Jesus,†he tells the players now. “Going out and recruiting the disciples.â€
* * *
The players talk and laugh, take pictures of old photographs with their phones.
There is a soccer ball at the church, on the table with photos and jerseys, but there’s not much of a field.
Besides, some of them are heading out for another sport: a round of golf.
Others have to go to work, have children to haul home.
Someone suggests a team photo.
The young men, urged to pick up their pizza plates and plastic cups, head outside.
“I’m still coaching them,†Rafique says. “Pick up the trash! Pick up the trash!â€
They make arrangements for the next reunion. This time at the home of Rafique and his wife, Nosheen, watching videos of the Brothers Eleven, back when they were boys, ruling the soccer field.
In the sun, the players pose, James Gomba in front as aways. The shortest player.
A decade later, his teammates tease him about finally outgrowing Rafique.
But just barely.
“It was the best team I ever played for in my life,†says the 25-year-old from Nigeria, who ran the soccer fields in Lincoln with players from all over the world, coached by a man in sandals from Pakistan who preached footwork and friendship.
“We were all like brothers.â€