Playing for the World Cup with a bullet wound in his leg
Adalberto Peñaranda carries Venezuela to the U-20 World Cup final
By Raúl Vilchis
Adalberto Peñaranda, the virtuoso left wing on Venezuela’s U-20 team, is on track to become one of the great examples of the kinetic beauty of soccer. Peñaranda sets the pace for a young Venezuela team which, for the first time in the country’s history, will play in the final of a FIFA U-20 World Cup, on Sunday against England in South Korea. Peñaranda has been involved in more goals than any other Venezuelan, scoring twice and adding three assists in six matches thus far.
His game is all about speed and acceleration, going from zero to 100 without losing any of the fluidity in his motions. He can step on the ball and stop the game, a pause in the frenzy, then flip the switch and go. It is explosive, and exhilarating, to watch.
Making his display even more surprising is he that he does it all with a bullet wound in his left leg. One night two years ago, when he was still playing for Deportivo La Guaira, a local team from a city north of Caracas, he was the victim of a violent robbery attempt. As Peñaranda and teammate Charlis Ortiz left a party, they were confronted by armed thugs who wanted to steal a car. They shot the two players.
Ortiz underwent surgery to remove a bullet lodged in his chest. Peñaranda somehow emerged mostly unscathed. A bullet had grazed his upper thigh and after being stitched up he was released from the hospital. The incident left a scar but didn’t end his career.
Peñaranda moved on to Granada, in Spain, in 2015, where the team’s physical tests found minor damage to his left leg, which had less muscle mass than his right. Today, his right leg bears most of the weight when he runs, but the imbalance has helped him with his favored move of cutting across the field from the left side, pivoting, and shooting quickly with his right foot.
His story is emblematic of his country, which is undergoing a period of unprecedented turmoil. Once the richest nation in South America, Venezuelanow has the highest murder rate in the region. The country is plagued by a political crisis after the death of longtime strongman president Hugo Chavez, runaway inflation, and dire food and medicine shortages. Chavez’s struggling replacement, Nicolás Maduro, has met protests with violence that so far have left at least 66 people dead since the beginning of April with hundreds more wounded and arrested.
And yet, amid all that chaos, Venezuela is experiencing some of the greatest sporting successes in its history.
For Hugo Chavez, the populist buddy of Diego Maradona, it was a point of pride to invest in the country’s sports infrastructure. Back then the country was awash in oil profits, and he had money to spend. And now, with the economy collapsing, the investment seems finally to be paying off. Athletes like Peñaranda are thriving not just in soccer but in other sports too. Venezuela’s four medals at the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games surpassed the number it had won over the previous three decades.
The only soccer competition Venezuela has ever won was the 1982 Central American and Caribbean Games. The country had only qualified for the U-20 World Cup once before, at Egypt 2009, when it advanced from the group stage only to be eliminated in the Round of 16. Now, preparing to play in the final for the first time, the Venezuelan kids aren’t lowering their sights.
“The goal is for us is to become world champions and to be able to give that joy to the country, which deserves so much,” center back Williams Velásquez said in a promotional video produced by the Venezuelan Football Federation (FVF).
Coach Rafael Dudamel went even further after the team’s semifinal win over Uruguay. Speaking passionately on the field in Daejeon, South Korea, Dudamel invoked the story of a teenager who had been killed by a tear gas canister the day before at a protest in Caracas. He saw the loss of life as a stark parallel to the possibilities open to his young players.
“Today a 17-year-old gave us so much joy and yesterday another 17-year-old died,” Dudamel said. “We have to lay down our weapons. These boys that are out on the street — the only thing they want is a better Venezuela so they can laugh and enjoy life, like the boys on this team.”
If Venezuela wins on Sunday, the victory will provide a much needed respite from its current troubles, and Peñaranda, the 20-year-old crack player with the bullet-wounded leg, could help carry the team there.
After Venezuela beat the United States in the quarterfinals, a match in which Peñaranda scored, he posted a message of hope for his team and his country to Twitter: “A true warrior does not fight for hatred of those in front of him, he fights for the love of those beside him.”
Raúl Vilchis is a Mexican writer who lives in New York. Follow him on Twitter at @elvilchisolalde
