A story from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil about a man named Andre de Souza Carlos who is blind and yet still plays soccer.  The story can be found at TheScene.

Andre had impaired vision from birth, but an accident later in life caused him to be completely blind.  He describes how after his blindness, “It was a big and deep fall for me.  I hit rock bottom…and [was] thinking about giving up and taking my life.”

But after he started playing soccer he started to have hope again and felt like he wanted to be around people.  He felt like his mind was working again, with expectations, dreams, and goals.   And he was accomplishing those goals.  All because of soccer.

The soccer is played on an indoor field with a ball that rattles so that the players can locate it.  There are 4 field players per team (all blind) and one goalie.  The field players wear eye covers in order to ensure someone with partial vision doesn’t have an advantage.

Watching this story should be an inspiration to those who love soccer, and even for those who don’t.  There is speed and intensity in the game as witnessed in the video.  These players didn’t let the lack of sight keep them from doing something they obviously love.

Traits used to evaluate this story –

Media application: This video was clearly produced by a professional.  Although it’s a short story (only 2:36), it tells a lot about Andre, Rio de Janeiro, and soccer.  It starts with images of a soccer match with upbeat music in the background.  There is a real sense of being present at the match.  It then moves to the story of Andre with a number of location shots around Rio where we see Andre walking the streets.  We then get shots of Andre with his fellow players that develops a real sense of their camaraderie during their game.  Using video to present this story gave me a sense of being at the location which no other media could have done so effectively.  To be able to see how the players navigated the game left me in awe of their courage and skill.  And the music added to the interest level of the story.

Flow, organization, and pacing: This was an area of strength for this video.  The story is very short, but it gives us a lot of information because of the flow, organization, and pacing.  As viewers, we not only get an introduction to soccer without sight, but we also get introduced to street life in Rio, and most importantly, a real sense of Andre and his personality.  The one part I found a bit confusing was at the very end of the video Andre sits down with a woman and two girls.  I wasn’t sure if they were his family or not.  It would have helped to have some type of indication.

Economy: Again, I felt that the economy of the story was very good.  They gave me a lot of information in just a short amount of time.  I didn’t feel that there was any time where they got off topic.  I was actually wanting to see more of the actual soccer game because I was fascinated by how the players moved, shot, and scored.  And the music was used effectively to convey a sense of mood with the different components.

Overall, I found this to be a very human story with production values that were well done.  Brief yet succinct – it tells a story of amazing individuals using the beautiful game to become players.