Let me tell you a story…

Born and raised on Uruguay, one of the smallest countries in South America, football is the name we use for a sport most of you know as Soccer, and American Football as we call it, was never very popular around here.

As almost half the kids around here, thanks to my late dad I grew up loving a combination of two colors, Black and Gold, the colors worn by my beloved Peñarol, one of the most popular soccer teams in Uruguay.

In 1999 once I entered college, one day a guy I barely knew came to me and told me I looked big enough, and asked me whether I wanted to play American Football on a new league that was getting created. I had already taken interest in the sport watching whatever game I could on TV and following a team that defended those same Black and Gold colors I already loved.

So there I started playing football, obviously due to my size I would play as a lineman all my life, both offensive and defensive, and started loving the game, getting to play for my national team in some international matches against neighbor countries.

Ever since I started playing and watching football I started dreaming of once getting to see the Pittsburgh Steelers live, but obviously it is really difficult to gather the money to travel over 5000 miles, be able to leave your work for a couple weeks and all that.

So last year, my cousin Martin, a good friend and I, all of us Steelers fans, started planning a trip to Pittsburgh which almost immediately failed due to several reasons. But the idea started growing stronger by the day that we had to make this trip sooner or later.

Last year was also the graduation in economics for my friend, and he decided to pursue a Major degree in the states and applied to several Universities in the U.S. getting accepted in the University of Pittsburgh.

By that time it all felt like destiny and we started once again thinking of making the trip with my cousin, but anyways money was a big factor, I would have to take a 20 days vacation and invest almost as much money as I earn in 6 months. So there were still some doubts.

Back in May in one of our Pre Season games I broke my Achilles tendon, after getting surgery it got infected so I had to get a second surgery. My company was about to send me to work abroad as a manager with a huge pay raise which didn’t work out, and suddenly 2012 started looking like one of the worst years In my life.

This made me take the decision, I had to turn whatever was left of this 2012 around, and a few months ago my cousin and I started planning this trip.

Next Thursday November 8th at 8:05 PM EST our flight to Pittsburgh will be taking off, and all three of us will be present in the Chiefs game, Ravens game (with the 80 season’s celebrations) and Browns game in Cleveland.