On Tuesday afternoon, Minnesota United’s entire first team visited the University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital as part of Childhood Cancer Awareness month and ahead of this week’s Kick Childhood Cancer Night match against FC Dallas on Saturday. Every team in MLS is “going gold” in September, with gold nets, corner flags and other elements at every match. Players visited children in their rooms in shifts while others worked on arts and crafts in the lobby or played with kids on a pair of pop-up goals.
“It's important,” said captain and defender Francisco Calvo, who will be wearing a gold armband for every match this month. “I think for the kids who like sports, even if it's not soccer — if it's football, basketball, whatever — it's good for them. They need this motivation to keep working hard and keep fighting to get better. For sure, all of us, we're happy to be here trying to help the community.”
Three players at a time autographed soccer balls at a table and others used paper plates and black construction paper to help kids make paper soccer balls. Jerome Thiesson and Ish Jome got particularly ambitious with theirs.
“These kids have been dealt an unfortunate hand right now, but they're resilient, they're fighters,” said midfielder Ethan Finlay. “Every time I come to these kind of things, I'm always inspired by the strength of the kids. You'll see a kid come down who just did chemotherapy days ago and he's walking around with a big smile and trying to run around with a soccer ball and the doctors probably have to hold him back.
“I love the fact that we've latched on to making ending childhood cancer our initiative, not only as a club but as a league,” he continued. “I think the players are very supportive of it. We have players in this league with kids who have had cancer and they've gone through this firsthand. So when you hear those stories from people you play alongside, you respect it that much more. Hopefully we continue to bring this issue to light and get more funding and find cures and find ways to help these kids out.”
Minnesota United’s Kick Childhood Cancer Night is this Saturday, September 23 when they face FC Dallas at TCF Bank Stadium. The teams kick off at 7:00 p.m. Season tickets for 2018 at TCF Bank Stadium are now available and becoming a season ticket holder now gives you seating priority for 2019 at Allianz Field. Buy match tickets for this season or make deposits on season tickets for the next at MNUFC.COM or by calling 763.4SOCCER.
