The Hand of God

KEVIN GOCO

When you speak of “GOD” and a “soccer ball,” an image that may come to the minds of many football fans is the amazing (or perhaps if you are English ‘controversial’) goal scored by the late great Argentinean footballer, Diego Armando Maradona, at the 1986 FIFA World Cup Quarterfinal against England. Maradona called the goal the “Hand of God” as it was miraculously upheld by referees who failed to see his infraction.

I, too, had my own “Hand of God” moment 17 years ago when I was serving for Gawad Kalinga. I did not score a massive goal in an immensely important game at a sporting event, followed by billions of people. Instead, I discovered God’s purpose for my life in the most unexpected circumstance – via a Jesus look-alike holding a soccer ball in a Gawad Kalinga community in the Philippines.

I am a football administrator, but I was never an accomplished varsity or national team football player. Growing up in football-mad Indonesia and eventually in British colonial Hong Kong (where English football is to locals what the NBA is to Filipino fans), I loved the game of soccer above everything else. Still, I was never exceptionally talented or good at it. Through football, I learned for the first time how to deal with success, how to handle failure, how to overcome setbacks, and how to work with others toward achieving a greater goal. These are all early lessons that, to this day, I still clearly remember and apply in my personal, professional, and spiritual life.

When I went to the US for college, I lost touch with the game of soccer. At that time, I was all-in on getting good grades to land a good corporate job. But it was when I got exposed to the non-profit Filipino foundation called Gawad Kalinga (GK), the sport of soccer miraculously rediscovered me and changed my life. While serving as a volunteer with GK back in the Philippines, I met Tito Ed Formoso, an amazing hippie of a person who had a long beard, long hair, and an uncanny physical resemblance to Jesus Christ. Tito Ed, together with Tito Danny Moran, a successful Filipino entrepreneur, and former national team football player, were looking to start street football programs in GK. Together with Myra, who eventually became my wife, we looked to use football as a tool for values formation and leadership development among marginalized and underprivileged youth living in slums in Metro Manila. At that time, I had all the intention to go back to the US.

But boy, did God have other plans. I think it was no coincidence that a man, who resembled Christ, came to me with a crazy idea about starting up community football projects in slum communities in the Philippines, a country not known for its football culture and tradition. How can you play football in a slum community? They don’t have access to the field. How can you promote football in the Philippines? Everyone only really cares about basketball and volleyball. Yet, I gravitated towards Jesus’ idea of promoting youth development through football. Why? Because I loved football, and I loved how this sport that very few Filipinos cared about could have such a tremendous impact on the lives of so many youths.

So I ran away with this project fueled mainly by this rediscovered passion and love for the game of soccer. Together with my wife and friends from high school, we formed the SipaG program, where we worked to use soccer to help mold and develop challenging youth in disadvantaged GK communities. The project consumed my life. At that time, I had a day job with a multinational. Still, my late evenings and weekends were dedicated solely to training community coaches, mentoring kids, and trying to figure out where on earth our fledgling street football program would get donations and financial support to run.

By God’s grace, the program survived and grew. Donors believed in our vision, generously donated, and the program grew. Starting with only a hand few kids from Brgy. Tatalon, by 2019 SipaG was working with over 3,000 kids in over 21 underprivileged communities. We successfully placed over 30 academic and athletic scholars in some of the best local public and private schools. Our kids even had the opportunity to travel abroad to Europe, Africa, South America, and Asia to compete for either GK or representing the Philippines through the PFF. Today, SipaG is being run and managed by some of our program graduates internationally certified and recognized football coaches and referees.

As SipaG became more independent, I got drawn to other projects and organizations with similar advocacies. In 2016, I hooked up again with Tito Ed and Tito Danny to start a public school futsal program under the Henry V. Moran Foundation called “Liga Eskwela Futsal.” We massively introduced futsal (a small-sided variant of football) into public schools and grew the program to cover over 300 public schools in 6 DepEd regions across the Philippines by 2019. I also received a full academic scholarship at the FIFA Master Program, Europe’s top-ranked sports management program offered each year to a cohort of 30 high potential sports administrators.

It is funny how God reveals to you your life’s purpose. He seems to take what you love most and ropes you in through that bait you love without realizing it. Like a soccer player, He unexpectedly kicks you down a channel and asks you to share that love and passion with other people. Like Diego Maradona’s controversial “Hand of God” goal, God can sometimes unexpectedly surprise you to the point where you can accept the blessing as a “miracle,” or you can write it off or ignore it, as what some of my English friends would call, an “absurdity.”