Silvio Velo has been blind since birth, but you would not know it watching him thread a soccer ball through an opponent’s legs, pick it up on the other side and fire it home for a goal.
Velo, who has been called the “blind Lionel Messi,” is the captain of Argentina’s visually impaired soccer team, the Murcielagos (Bats), who are hoping to win gold at the Rio de Janeiro Paralympics in August.
At 45 years old, he has led the team to virtually every other conquest in the sport: three World Cups, two Copa Americas, the silver medal at the 2004 Paralympics — the first to feature visually impaired soccer — and bronze in 2008.
Photo: AFP
Known for his speed, keen sense of the soccer field and incredible knack for scoring, Velo has often been compared to his compatriot Messi, the Barcelona star and five-time World Player of the Year.
The best players in visually impaired soccer — a five-a-side game played with an audible ball that has small bells inside — tend to be those who have been blind all their lives, like Velo.
“When I heard a ball for the first time, it was like music,” said the charismatic star, who has a big smile and a contagious laugh.
Photo: AFP
He grew up playing soccer with his sighted friends in the port city of San Pedro.
He remembers being treated like just another kid in the neighborhood, even riding a bike and playing hide and seek — “although I never found anybody,” he said with a laugh.
He found out about a special version of soccer for the blind only when he was 10 years old. By then, he had already learned to hold his own against opponents who could see.
“I used to hear my friends juggling the ball off their knees, their shoulders, from one foot to the other,” he said. “I thought: ‘How do I do that if I can’t see the ball? If I lift it off the ground, I’ll lose it.’”
His solution was to put the ball inside a bag so he could hear it. Soon he was juggling with the best of them.
Velo’s talent and speed surprised his physical trainer, a childhood friend named Mariano Arnal.
“I used to train him by running with my hand tied to his, but he was so fast I ended up using a bicycle. And even then, I couldn’t keep up, so I ended up using a motorcycle,” Arnal said, laughing.
There is a magical quality to visually impaired soccer, the players crisscrossing the field without colliding like planets in orbit.
Although it looks much like regular soccer, the sounds of the game are inverted: The crowd must remain completely silent, while there is a cacophony on the field.
Coaches yell instructions from the sidelines and behind the goal, while players shout out their movements to each other.
They wear blindfolds to level the playing field between those with various degrees of visual impairment. Only the goalkeepers can see.
A father of five who recently became a grandfather, Velo is the go-to scorer for the Murcielagos.
He plays professionally for the visually impaired team of Buenos Aires club Boca Juniors, his childhood idols and the country’s most popular team.
The Boca Juniors recently poached him from cross-town rivals River Plate, where he was the star player for a decade.
Just one exploit eludes him in the home stretch of a storied career: winning gold in Brazil.
“We want that medal,” he said. “It’s the one we’re missing. We’re extremely fired up.”
Taiwan’s men’s table tennis team won bronze on Saturday at this year’s International Table Tennis Federation World Team Table Tennis Championships in London, matching the country’s best-ever finish at the regular tournament. Consisting of Lin Yun-ju, Taiwan’s top-ranked player at world No. 7, Feng Yi-hsin, Kuo Guan-hong, Hong Jing-kai and Hsu Hsien-chia, the team won bronze after losing 0-3 to Japan in the semifinals. In the opening match, 24-year-old Lin played the first game against world No. 3 Tomokazu Harimoto 11-5, but ultimately lost the next three closely contested games 9-11, 10-12 and 10-12. Feng then faced world No. 8 Sora Matsushima in
Lin Yun-ju on Thursday handed Taiwan two key victories as they advanced to the semi-finals of the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals in London. The Taiwan men’s table tennis team beat Sweden 3-2 in five singles matches. The 24-year-old Lin, Taiwan’s top-ranked player at world No. 7 and nicknamed the “Silent Assassin,” opened the tie by defeating world No. 2 Truls Moregard 3-0 (11-8, 11-9, 13-11) before clinching the deciding fifth match with a 3-0 (11-8, 11-9, 11-5) win over Anton Kallberg to hand his team the overall victory. Kuo Guan-hong put Taiwan up 2-0 with a 3-2 (4-11, 11-8, 8-11,
Taiwanese fire dancer Yang Li-wei advanced to the final of Britain’s Got Talent this weekend after receiving a Golden Buzzer during her live semi-final performance. Yang, a member of Taiwan’s Coming True Fire Group, awed judges and audiences with a high-intensity fire performance featuring flaming umbrellas, fire swallowing and spinning metal structures balanced with her legs. Judge Simon Cowell praised Yang as a star, while guest judge KSI reacted with amazement before pressing the Golden Buzzer, sending her to the finals. The dance group wrote on social media that the Golden Buzzer was “the highest honor” on the talent show, adding: “Twenty-three years
As Super Rugby fast approaches its playoff season it finds itself racing toward a reckoning with many issues that threaten the southern hemisphere tournament. A group of stakeholders met in the New Zealand city of Christchurch late last month to address problems that are making the future of the 31-year-old competition increasingly tenuous. The discussion was made more urgent by the decision by the owners of Moana Pasifika to fold the Auckland-based club for financial reasons. That followed the closure of the Melbourne Rebels at the end of the 2024 season, likewise because of financial difficulties. Problems addressed included player retention as more
RSS