A goal offered to God

Ignacio Gonzalez, footballer and student

January 1, 2002

Tags: Apostolate, Sport I’ve been playing football ever since I could walk. My Dad urged me on, because he’s a great sportsman and fanatical about football. I played junior football for the Little Place Club and also in inter-school tournaments, wearing the Monte VI strip, which was the school I went to. I always loved it, and in 1992 I and some friends applied to Danubio FC. I was accepted, and I started off in the Club’s junior division in 1993.

The football world was very different from the atmosphere I was used to. You find that for some people, the only thing that matters is the game, and they do anything or nothing with the rest of their lives. This meant that my team-mates would often ask me things like why did I go to Mass, or why did I go to Confession, and if this or that was a sin “for me”.

In fact, many of them listen to me with respect and they value what I tell them about God and the Church. With others it’s more difficult because they have no clear reference-points to follow in their family or among their friends, and for some of them, anything goes, especially in their nightlife.

There are also some people who’ve told me that they don’t believe because “the churches are full of money” or “the Pope lives in a huge palace”, and other clichés like that. In spite of that, I think they like having a friend who believes in God and stands by what he believes in. Anyway, on Danubio FC’s current line-up I’ve got one team-mate who goes to Mass. And when we play a match on a Sunday, the technician leaves the pre-match preparation on Saturday evenings to go to Mass.

At home there was always a Christian family atmosphere, and I received Saint Josemaria’s message from my parents, at Monte VI School, and at Flama Club, which I also often used to play football for. I think I would have been in my third year at school when my father told me I should remember God on the football pitch too. He said I could dedicate my goals to God, or offer them to him for some specific intention. Shortly after that, my religion teacher told me almost the same thing. The coincidence made such an impression on me that I never forgot it.

Saint Josemaria used to say that we have to sanctify our work. My work today is football, and there have been very few matches when I haven’t remembered God. I remember how when I was doing junior football, and in the Danubio Junior division, I offered up all the goals I scored for Gabriela, a friend of my sister Frederica who was sick for many years and is now in Heaven. Sometimes I forgot, and still do forget, to offer up the goals and the nice bits of footwork in a match, and then I get a bit annoyed with myself, but I offer everything up together at the end. A lot of my friends give me grief because after the goal I scored against Defensor FC, which was the equalizer at that point and a very important goal for us, I had two radio interviews and I said that I’d offered that goal to God. I hadn’t planned to say it, it just came out.

In football there aren’t just goals to offer up. I had to go through some hard times, and then too I remembered how Saint Josemaria used to say that you’ve got to keep going, in a sporting spirit, which couldn’t be more appropriate in my job. It happened, for instance, when I moved up a division in the Club and had to play with people I didn’t know too well. I found that really hard because I’m naturally a bit shy. I feel much more myself when I’m playing with friends or long-time team-mates, so for those first matches and practices, I asked our Lord for help with everything – even to help me yell for them to give me more passes.

Trying to sanctify my work has also helped me during hard pre-seasons, and when I’m on the substitutes bench. Doing everything facing God sort of spurs you on not to slacken, it spurs you to keep running or keep hoping for a chance to play, which, thank God, I’ve got today.

I still remember clearly the time in 1997 when Bishop Javier Echevarría, the Father, came to Uruguay. I remember a gathering with young people where people where asking him things. I told him I played football and that I had lots of team-mates who didn’t believe in God. I asked him what exactly I could do for them, to bring them to God and to Opus Dei. The Father gave me a very brief answer: “Apostolate.” That was all he said to me, but I found it really helpful and it encouraged me to try and help my team-mates more. I invited several of them to talks in an Opus Dei center and they kept coming for some time. I’m sure that bringing them closer to God is the one of the best things I can do for them – even better than good passes or goals for the team.

Extract from San Josemaria y los Uruguayos, ed. Maria Magdalena Pareja Silveira, Montevideo, 2002