"The walls are the publishers of the poor." — Eduardo Galeano

I wanted to be a soccer player, and I became the best of the best, the number one, better than Maradona, better than Pele, and even better than Messi - but only at night, nighttime, during my dreams. When I wake up, I realized that I have wooden legs and that I'm doomed to be a writer.

The more the technocrats programme it down to the smallest detail, the more the powerful manipulate it, football continues to be the art of the unforeseeable. When you least expect it, the impossible occurs: the dwarf teaches the giant a lesson, and a scraggy, bow-legged black man makes an athlete sculpted in Greece look ridiculous.

The world is becoming an immense military base, and that base is becoming a mental hospital the size of the world. Inside the nuthouse, which ones are crazy?

Almost all wars, perhaps all, are trade wars connected with some material interest. They are always disguised as sacred wars, made in the name of God, or civilization or progress. But all of them, or almost all of the wars, have been trade wars.

I remember that - you know, I didn't receive a formal education. I was educated in the Montevideo cafe, in the cafes of Montevideo. There, I received my first lessons in the art of telling stories, storytelling.

Even though professional soccer has become more about business and less about the game itself, I still believe football is a party for the legs that play it and for the eyes that watch it.

The fiesta of soccer, a feast for the legs that play and the eyes that watch, is much more than a big business run by overlords from Switzerland. The most popular sport in the world wants to serve the people who embrace it.

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The walls are the publishers of the poor.