The soccer tournament gathered teenagers from around Celaya, an industrial city in central Mexico, offering a refuge from the death and violence that have become a way of life here.<\/p>\n
As the Ravens waited for their next match, some players stretched between games, taking a moment of silence to focus. Others glared at the competition as they gathered around a boombox blasting narcocorridos, polka and waltz-based ballads extolling the lives of Mexican drug lords<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t like it, but I can\u2019t tell them to turn it off,\u201d said their coach, Sugey Milagros Salinas Grimaldi. \u201cThey are very loyal to their way of living, and I must respect that.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of the songs were about their own loved ones, killed in gruesome ways while slinging drugs, a common path out of poverty in Celaya. Shutting off the music risked insulting the memory of their dead, Ms. Salinas explained.<\/p>\n She struggles to keep the children of Celaya, one of the world\u2019s most dangerous cities, off the streets and away from the cartels. She has watched with alarm as her students join the criminals that have woven themselves into the city\u2019s social fabric or fall off the grid, slipping into addiction.<\/p>\n Now, the cartels are moving to control the local soccer leagues by any means necessary, gunning down spectators and assassinating or kidnapping players.<\/p>\n They threaten one of the city\u2019s last remaining joys and a rare, honest possible pathway out of poverty for local children. Who would recruit these teenagers first, Ms. Salinas or the cartels?<\/p>\n Far from the crowds of the World Cup games, many of the soccer fields have gone silent around the city. The crowds here have been replaced with crosses and monuments bearing the names of victims: players, referees and spectators who were gunned down.<\/p>\n When a cartel killed 11 people after a game in January, local governments suspended all soccer events for nearly a month. When they resumed, many players were too afraid to return.<\/p>\n Not the Ravens.<\/p>\n The boys played hungrily, weeks of cabin fever erupting onto the soccer field. Some of the players mocked their rivals, egging them on.<\/p>\n \u201cYou express what you need to express on the field!\u201d Ms. Salinas yelled, urging the team to release their frustrations through the sport, not fistfights.<\/p>\n In moments like these, Ms. Salinas relied on Juan Pablo, 14, her star player and the team\u2019s captain. Juan Pablo came from a farming family and was everything she wanted her other players to be: well-behaved and respectful, with a stellar school attendance.<\/p>\n He tried to rally his teammates, urging them to work together.<\/p>\n But another player, Manuel, 13, was picking fights with the referee and questioning his calls. He could be a star, but his emotions made him quick to anger and quick to get a yellow card<\/a>.<\/p>\n Manuel was out of practice. He had missed two months of school to get high, a brief reprieve from his difficult life: A brother had been killed by a cartel, his father had hanged himself, and his mother worked long hours yet could barely make ends meet.<\/p>\n Ms. Salinas had kicked him off the team until he cleaned up. The tournament was his first time playing in months.<\/p>\n Both Manuel and Juan Pablo were eager to show off their skills, hoping to be noticed by the scouts looking for young talent to feed into Mexico\u2019s professional teams.<\/p>\n It is a race against time for both teenagers, in a sport where most retire at 35.<\/p>\n The Ravens are bound by poverty but little else \u2014 some come from humble farming families, others from households with criminal ties. On the field, Ms. Salinas tries to make them all equal. She funds the team herself since there is no public funding available.<\/p>\n From the sidelines, a Ravens mom cheered the team on. She had a pistol tattooed on one side of her neck with the year 1991 and an AK-47 with the name Alexis on the other.<\/p>\n \u201cI love pistols and I was born in 1991,\u201d explained the mother, Mirian Mendoza. \u201cAlexis was my brother,\u201d she said. \u201cHe died violently.\u201d<\/p>\n The game ended. The Ravens had lost. Manuel fell to the ground, crying. Juan Pablo looked on as the winning team posed with their trophy, his eyes filled with hunger.<\/p>\n Juan Pablo headed home. A huge opportunity hung in the balance: an invitation for tryouts with Chivas, Guadalajara\u2019s professional team. He just needed to raise $300 to go.<\/p>\n It could be the start of a new life.<\/p>\n Days later, a sign appeared on the soccer fields where the tournament had been held.<\/p>\n If you play here, you must pay, it said.<\/p>\n Mexico\u2019s Bermuda Triangle<\/p>\n Celaya and the surrounding areas around are a kind of outpost for Mexico\u2019s oil, piped in from faraway wells and refined in the area. While the state-owned refinery brought jobs, it also attracted the cartels, competing to siphon off the oil to sell on the black market. The illicit business has become a major cartel revenue stream, netting billions of dollars annually<\/a>, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.<\/p>\n That has made the area one of Mexico\u2019s most dangerous, ranked 13th in the world for homicides.<\/p>\n Locals say they live in the Bermuda Triangle. Commuters often disappear forever.<\/p>\n The community now fears it is losing itself. Children are shuttered in at night. Parties end early, if they happen at all. Several church festivals were canceled this year after cartel extortion threats.<\/p>\n It was only a matter of time until soccer became the next target.<\/p>\n \u201cIt hurts us a lot,\u201d said Celaya\u2019s mayor, Juan Miguel Ram\u00edrez S\u00e1nchez. \u201cSports is one of the only ways to save children from violence.\u201d<\/p>\n The first episode happened in 2018, when a referee and a player were killed on the field. Last year, 13 players were killed across the metropolitan zone of Celaya. So far this year, 14 players and spectators have been killed.<\/p>\n