The only village to beat Wenger’s Arsenal, twice

The rocky landscape of Valle del Chota in northern Ecuador rarely gives the local fruit farmers much to cheer about. One bumper crop the region has been harvesting on a regular basis however is highly talented footballers.

Agustín Delgado and Édison Méndez grew up a stone’s throw from each other in the impoverished village of Chota. It was their goals which inflicted a brace of defeats on Wenger’s Arsenal while the Ecuadorian hitmen were at Southampton and PSV Eindhoven respectively.

Valle del Chota can be found somewhere between Quito and the Colombian border, nestling between two branches of Andean mountains. Four hundred years ago Jesuits brought slaves from Angola to the area, putting them to work in the mines and on sugar plantations.

African ancestry in the area is still in evidence within the dialect of the 25,000 inhabitants, more often than not though the folk from Valle del Chota let their feet do the talking.

While clocking up over 100 appearances in the Premier League for Aston Villa and Reading, Ulises de la Cruz set-up the Friends of FundeCruz foundation to help youngsters in Valle del Chota.

“We never had many footballs or proper shoes and the pitch was always in very poor condition. My goal now is give my people control over their lives, I think black people in Ecuador should not just aim to be footballers but to take jobs in all walks of life. We have to exercise our rights as human beings and become attorneys, engineers and architects.”

The 2002 World Cup was seen as a watershed moment in Ecuador which saw the country finally realise the value of its entire population. Black people make up just five percent of Ecuador’s 14.2 million population yet seven members of Hernán Darío Gómez’s 23-man squad for the trip to the Far East hailed from Valle del Chota alone.

Despite being home to 40,000 less people than the crowd in Yokohama for the 1-0 win over Croatia, Valle del Chota redefined Ecuadorian football. The man who bagged the winner against Croatia was Édison Méndez, born and raised on the banks of the Chota River.

After playing in his second World Cup, Méndez enjoyed a successful spell at PSV Eindhoven. During his time in Holland the former Valle del Chota resident became the first Ecuadorian to score in the Champions League and was even honoured with a Ballon d’Or nomination.

Other Ecuadorian internationals to have emerged from Valle del Chota include Giovanny Espinoza, Raúl Guerrón, Joffre Guerrón and Kléber Chalá. However, the most celebrated of all footballers to have learnt his trade in Valle del Chota is Ecuador’s top international goalscorer, Agustín Delgado.

After netting nine goals in qualification to help Ecuador reach the 2002 World Cup the player known simply as El Tin kicked off the Agustín Delgado Foundation. Today over 300 children are enrolled in the football academy enabling Club Valle del Chota to field under-10, 12, 14, 16 as well as a senior side complete with reserve outfit.

In their latest campaign Club Valle del Chota are hoping to gain promotion to Ecuador’s second tier. They have been boosted in this quest by their highest profile signing to date, 35-year-old club president and Copa Libertadores winner, Agustín Delgado.

“I always dreamt of winning things and playing in a World Cup, the normal things every player wants. I could never have imagined that I would be playing back here and trying to win promotion to the top leagues with my team.”

Also involved in El Tin’s dream is his family with sister Diana heading up the foundation’s education program and berother Pedro coaching Club Valle del Chota reserves.

Diana insists that all boys attending the academy must also pass each stage of their high school diploma and she is currently working on a cultural centre in Valle del Chota.

For the last 10 years El Tin has funding everything the foundation has done to the tune of 50 per cent but those days could soon be coming to an end. With El Tin no longer earning the big money his brother Pedro is worried about future funding for the academy.

“When the national team is doing well and Valle del Chota is in the news we have lots of people making offers but the money never comes. Sometimes it costs us $1000 to take the team to an away match. It takes a thousand things to succeed in Valle del Chota, the worse thing we can do is deceive the kids and tell them everything is okay.”

With so much good work being done by El Tin on behalf of the youth of Valle del Chota there was some irony in his arrest last week for unpaid child support. After two days in jail the debt is now settled and El Tin is free to return to his roots.

(Photo: Children playing football in Juncal, Valle del Chota, Ecuador, 6 June 2010. Getty Images)

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