Soccer helps some young Hondurans to avoid gangs

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — From where he sits on a dusty soccer pitch between the fetid Choluteca River and four-lane Armed Forces Boulevard, 11-year-old Maynor Ayala can see only two ways out of the gang-controlled slums of the capital: on a professional soccer team, or in a cheap coffin.

Sweating and gulping water on a hot Saturday afternoon, he is euphoric after scoring a goal for the first time in weeks. Briefly, he allows himself to imagine going all the way to the World Cup one day, just like one of his heroes, Emilio Izaguirre, who will play in Brazil this summer on the Honduran national team. “I want to be a soccer player,” Maynor says.