NEWS STORY: El Centro soccer coach lives it up at Brazil World Cup
When the USA takes on Ghana in its opening match of the 2014 World Cup, Ruben “Cat” Felix of El Centro will be there, decked out in red, white and blue, one of 45,000 soccer fanatics crammed into Estadio das Dunas in Natal, Brazil, on Monday.
The 40-year-old Felix, head coach for the freshman boys’ soccer squad at Central Union High School, is a substitute teacher in the district spending his vacation at World Cup, where when all is said and done he will have seen seven matches with his two cousins and traveling companions.
While Imperial Valley residents and all of Mexico seemed to be cheering on “El Tri’s” 1-0 opening victory over Cameroon on Friday morning, Felix was in the crowd then, too, sitting among tens of thousands of Mexican soccer fans in a literal sea of green, as Felix described intermittent downpours that left the Natal crowd drenched but did nothing to dampen its enthusiasm.
“The atmosphere was great,” he said from his Natal hotel room Friday. “The rain didn’t stop the people; they were cheering and dancing, singing all through the game. There were costumes and drums; it was amazing.”
After a week in Sao Paolo, crashing on a friend’s couch, Felix will remain in Natal until next week, when he and his cousins travel to Recife and later Belo Horizonte to finish out World Cup, next traveling the countryside for a couple of weeks before returning home. Felix will even hook up with a pair of friends from the Valley in Recife to watch USA vs. Germany on June 26 in Arena Pernambuco.
So far, his second trip to Brazil has surpassed all expectations, as he said the South American soccer mecca and land of good-looking people and good times has lived up to the promises.
“It’s just awesome; fantastic. The people are great; they eat and breathe soccer. I’m in heaven right now,” Felix said. “I’m just having an amazing experience, the time of my life. The food is great, the women are beautiful and the weather is great.”
For Felix, who comes from a family of youth soccer stars and devout players, being able to spend this time at World Cup, where soccer is more world religion than world pastime, is an opportunity he just couldn’t pass up.
“Dude, I’ve been playing soccer since I was a little kid. This is like the Super Bowl to me … when I found out the World Cup was here, I had to get on the bandwagon,” he said.
Felix has been planning this trip since December, when his cousins won a FIFA lottery that enabled them to purchase tickets to matches at face value rather than on an open market that has seen prices go as high as $500 a ticket.
This is actually the second World Cup Felix has been to, attending four matches in the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1994, when he was 20 years old. But, he said, Brazil is a whole other ball game.
“It’s totally different; like night and day,” he said. “The people are rowdy and the whole town is decked out” in their team’s colors.
Felix has been playing like a one-man Brazilian tourism bureau, posting colorful photos and countless videos to his Facebook page to capture and share the experience with friends back home. He even encouraged others to send a “friend” request if they’d like to live vicariously through him. He goes by “Cat Felix” on Facebook.
From the local activity found on social media, it appears there are at least a dozen Imperial Valley residents in Brazil at the moment, getting their fix on this once-in-a-lifetime experience. That is a message Felix says he will bring back to his young Central soccer charges.
“I’m going to soak it all in and tell the kids to travel, not just to the World Cup, but to experience things on their own,” he said. “I’m going to tell them to travel and see the world.”
This news story first appeared in the Imperial Valley Press, June 15, 2014.