Our South American Odyssey: The Final Chapter Jason Koegler April 15, 2019 "For a friend with an understanding heart is worth no less than a brother" - Homer, The Odyssey. After our there-and-back, 30-hour bus odyssey to Buenos Aries, everyone was ready for Day 9 to be a little mor...
Our South American Odyssey: Day 8 Jason Koegler April 9, 2019 On the evening of Day 7, April 3, 2019, we climbed into our "El Practico" bus and embarked on a 10-hour red-eye from Cordoba to Argentina's Capital: Buenos Aires. During the grueling ride, we stopped at ...
Our South American Odyssey: Day 7 Jason Koegler April 8, 2019 Day 6 brought practice, Day 7, April 3 2019, was Game Day. It seems all of our efforts in fundraising, planning and practicing have led to this moment. This was the day our boys from Wheeling and the Ohio Valle...
Our South American Odyssey: Day 6 Jason Koegler April 6, 2019 We have been in in Cordoba, Argentina now for three days and on Tuesday April 2 2019 we were ready to take the field for the first time. But first we needed to take care of something we had been planning for a ...
Our South American Odyssey: Day 5 Jason Koegler April 4, 2019 Last you heard from us it was Day 4 and the boys were holding a "sleepover" with their host families. When they awoke on Monday April 1 2019, they had, literally and figuratively, never been this far home. Yes,...
Our South American Odyssey: Day 4 Jason Koegler April 3, 2019 The “sleepover” is not a foreign concept to these 13-year-olds, yet Day Four of our journey presented a brand-new take on the subject. In the afternoon of Sunday March 31, the boys of FC United were dropped off...
Our South American Odyssey: Day 3 Jason Koegler April 2, 2019 There are those moments in life that inspire people to take a step back, take a deep breath and reflect. For some it might happen often, but for most it only occurs a handful of times. It is when we find oursel...
Our South American Odyssey: Day 1 Jason Koegler March 30, 2019 It was 5 a.m. on Thursday, March 27, 2019, when 14 boys from the FC Wheeling United U-14 soccer team became a part of a long-standing Wheeling “send-off” tradition by convening at the White Palace parking lot i...
Our South American Odyssey: Preview Jason Koegler March 28, 2019 After months of planning, fundraising, meeting — and lots of soccer — reality finally settled in. The exact timing of such realization happened a few weeks ago when Diego Gattesco sent a message to our group o...
Wheeling’s Golden Core Jason Koegler November 10, 2016 This isn't a sports story. It's not a sentimental story. It's not a "glory days" story. It's a story of a city, Wheeling, West Virginia, whose core is made of gold. State Champs On Novemember 9th, 19...