World Cup brings new attention to Mexico's ancestral ball game
by editors@theworld.org (Tibisay Zea) from The World: Latest Stories on (#76GT8)
Mexico may be hosting the World Cup, but soccer wasn't the country's first ball game. Long before FIFA, Indigenous groups across Mesoamerica played versions of a game with a heavy rubber ball, struck with the hip. Today, it's known as ulama, or juego de cadera. In Mexico City, players are hoping the World Cup helps bring this ancestral sport new attention - and The World's Tibisay Zea even tried it herself.