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Francisco Stenger

@oye_cisco

1.6K

followers

2021

following

UWG 🐺➡️ GT 🐝
Multilingual 🇬🇧🇪🇸🇩🇪
Street Soccer Professional
Que viva Carolina

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To my friend,

It’s been a month since I last spoke to you. A month where I’ve looked back on a lifetime. A lifetime with you. Full of memories, full of fun, full of friends, family, and joy. Lots of joy. That’s who you are after all..pure joy. Ever since day one you’ve been that way. Throughout all the summers. All the holidays…Halloween (you loved Halloween), Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years…you love to celebrate any opportunity. We both do. Why not? Why not cheer for your people, celebrate with your people…share as many festive moments as possible together. We’ve celebrated so much – milestones, graduations (plenty of those), games, and birthdays…lots of birthdays. Lots of games too. You always brought the fun with you. You brought the courage too. I say that because you were never afraid to try. To do. Sometimes, we couldn’t even keep up with you. But you made us try. You made people be brave. And you always believed in me. I think what’s even more impressive – you helped me believe in myself. Only a best friend can do that, the way you did.

So many memories. Enough to last a lifetime. Even though you’re not here, I can still hear you in everything I do. Encouraging me, being a friend, being my person. I hope to keep hearing you. To keep feeling your presence. And your love. You were never shy to let the people around know how much you loved. I wish I could tell you one last time how grateful I am for that…and for you. I’m not the best at writing letters, so I’ll just finish up with the same thing you wrote me once. “To my crazy, most heart-loving bestest friend. Love you forever.”
- Cisco by @oye_cisco

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2 years ago

World Cup Diary pt. 3. The Joy.

Thank you summer. For the opportunity to watch the World Cup transform my city. For the experience of seeing my national team up close on the biggest stage. For the connections made with fans and colleagues from around the world. And for the memories shared with the people I love.

Broken shoulder or not, nothing was going to stop me from enjoying this tournament to the max. Did I do the most? Perhaps. Do I cherish every moment? You’re damn right I do. From the Fan Festivals to the stadiums and everything in between, it was a dream to share this summer with my community. Gracias fútbol. by @oye_cisco

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2 months ago

World Cup Diary pt. 2. The Work.

If you know me, you know I’ve been talking about being a part of this World Cup for a long time. One way or another, I was going to be there. But to have been able to attend Atlanta’s matches as a chaperone for the kids I’ve worked with over the years exceeded every expectation I had.

Speaking on panels with local creatives. Working tournaments and Fan Fests. Collaborating with partners in community events. Delivering summer camps with some of my favorite people. And experiencing the joy of the Cup with the youth I serve…we really did it all this summer. The tournament wasn’t only about the matches inside the stadium, but also about the communities that show why the game matters. And it was a reminder of why I do what I do.

Proud of the work, grateful for the people, and excited for what’s next. The World Cup may be over, but soccer never rests. taken in Atlanta, Georgia by @oye_cisco

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3 months ago

World Cup Diary. Un sueño cumplido. Gracias vida y gracias fútbol 🇺🇾 taken in Hard Rock Stadium by @oye_cisco

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3 months ago

We all have those childhood memories that we like to look back on. Many of us understand the feeling of homesickness you get for a certain special place in your life.
But can you be homesick for a place that no longer exists? Not because it disappeared from a map, but because it exists only in memory. What about being homesick for a feeling? For a version of yourself? For a moment in time that can never be recreated exactly as it was?

There’s a Portuguese word for this feeling, and it’s my favorite word in the world: Saudade.

Saudade (pronounced ‘sow-DAH-jee’) describes a deep and often melancholic longing for a person, place, or period of time that you can no longer access. It’s more than nostalgia. Nostalgia allows us to remember. Saudade asks us to ‘live with the absence’. Growing up around my northern Uruguayan family, I was used to Brazilian culture influencing some of the words we used in our everyday language. For me, I always associated saudade as the profound way of missing something.

For many people, especially those who grow up between cultures, countries, or identities, saudade can become a familiar companion. It’s the feeling of carrying a place with you wherever you go. The food, the language, the music, the people, the version of yourself that existed there. You build a new life in a new place, but part of you remains connected to somewhere else.

From a mental health perspective, saudade can be complicated. It can show up as restlessness, grief, or the feeling that you’re always comparing the present to the past. It can make us idealize places, relationships, and chapters of life that can never be recreated exactly as they were.

But saudade isn’t necessarily something to overcome. In many ways, it’s evidence that something mattered. That the love was once there. That the people we’ve lost, the relationships that have changed, and the communities we’ve left behind have all shaped us. The challenge is learning to honor what we miss without allowing it to prevent us from creating something new.

Maybe the goal isn’t to stop looking back. Maybe it’s to appreciate where we’ve been and understand how it shaped us as we try to move forward. by @oye_cisco

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4 months ago

Family. Friends. Fútbol. In that order. Gracias Primavera. by @oye_cisco

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5 months ago

Men, it’s time to ask ourselves: what do we ask for our partners in a relationship? Do we want unending love without condition? Do we want constant physical connection? Do we want someone to validate our every thought and feeling? Having asked myself all of these questions over the years, I realize that I’ve often been guilty of focusing on what I can get from a relationship as opposed to what I can bring. Overrelying on the emotional capacity of others’, and watching that overreliance backfire, has led me to to discover the word Amae (甘え).

Translating loosely to “indulgent reliance”, Amae (pronounced ‘ah-mah-eh’) is a Japanese term that describes the desire to depend on someone else’s affection. It refers to wanting for someone to unconditionally care for and pamper our emotional needs. Depending on how we approach it, Amae can be both a pathway to build intimacy or a slippery slope to psychological manipulation.

At its best, Amae is the quiet comfort of letting your guard down. It goes against the idea that men need to be reserved, and offers a place for men to admit uncertainty, ask reassurance instead, and seek nurturing without feeling emasculated. However, Amae is healthy only when it’s mutual and intentional. If a man expects emotional caretaking without reciprocity, it becomes an imbalance. If he depends on a partner to regulate all of his feelings because he never learned to do it himself, that’s not intimacy, it’s emotional exploitation.

In a world where many men are rarely taught how to express need, Amae provides a different lens: strong relationships aren’t built on emotional isolation or imbalance, but on shared vulnerability. by @oye_cisco

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7 months ago

The 2025 Collection ⚽️

Reflecting on last year and what’s always brought me the most joy: soccer, community, and the people who make it meaningful.
Starting 2026 with the same mission: connecting through the ‘beautiful game’.

Fútbol y comunidad sobre todo. by @oye_cisco

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9 months ago

“Boys don’t cry. You’ve got to man up. Boys will be boys.” We’ve heard these before. Classic sayings that all revolve around the same thought: Men are always supposed to be rough, tough, and keep their emotions to themselves. This concept can be summarized with a phrase you might know if you grew up in a Spanish-speaking environment - Machismo. Although the original usage of the word comes from the Spanish language, you may have heard it before in conversational English, even if you don’t know what it fully means.

As it implies, Machismo refers to the sense of being ‘macho’ or manly. It reflects a strong sense in masculine pride, and the idea that men should always be strong, stoic, and self-reliant, which at first doesn’t seem so bad. However, what it has come to mean in the modern sense is exaggerated masculinity, often associated with defensiveness, male aggression (and violence), and emotional insensitivity. Not just towards others, but with themselves. Showing machismo is synonymous with the denial of human emotions, which often leads to lashing out and other hostile behaviors.

My biggest problem with Machismo is that it implies that men can’t act masculine AND be emotionally vulnerable. This is not only true for men in Latin American culture, where the word Machismo comes from and where men are often expected to suppress their feelings or else appear as weak, but also for men around the world. But for me, one of the weakest things a man can do is ignore their problems for the sake of coming off as tough. And nothing is weaker than a man who aggressively projects their insecurities (which we ALL have) on those around them.

Let me be clear, I have no problem with certain traditional ‘male’ roles and I actually celebrate being masculine. But I ask, why can’t a man be a protector and some days need protection? Why can’t a man carry weight and still ask for a hand lifting it? Why can’t a man fight for others and also ask someone to fight for him? Why can’t a man be strong and still cry? A man can be all these things. For these things aren’t meant to soften us, but to strengthen us. by @oye_cisco

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10 months ago

When academic exploration leads to real-world impact. Proud of alumni who turn their GMC experience into meaningful careers. MS-GMC alumni, Francisco Stenger, now serves as a Program Manager for Atlanta’s Soccer in the Streets, where he works with youth and uses soccer as a tool for growth and community. 🌱⚽

“The GMC program gave me the opportunity to design a master’s thesis in a process that allowed me to pursue my academic interests and deeply develop my German / foreign language skills. Throughout my time in the GMC program, I was able to create a media project overseas, explore my passions from an analytic perspective, and network and learn from numerous professionals from various career fields. My master’s project, which explored the social and sustainable impact of soccer from the lens of the UN SDGs, was what ultimately connected me to my current job at Soccer in the Streets, which I’ll forever be grateful for.” -Francisco S. taken in School of Modern Languages at Georgia Tech by @oye_cisco

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10 months ago

REFLECTION
Looking back so that we can learn how to move forward. by @oye_cisco

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10 months ago

Time for a little reflection. I don’t mean looking back at yourself in a mirror, although I am referring to looking back…on the past week, the past month, the past year. What better time to look back than now, with a month left in 2025. As a young man, I thought no better time to reflect on my journey understanding my mental health than Men’s Health Awareness Month. This page isn’t meant to be a corny blog (although it might be at times). It’s not meant to shove social-emotional concepts in your face. It’s meant to be a conversation starter.

As an emotional concept, reflection is the process of examining one’s own thoughts and feelings, and how they influence our behaviors. Reflection helps us learn to communicate more constructively, build more positive relationships, and better understand our own identities. For men, these concepts can be difficult to consider, much less speak about. That’s why I want to speak about them with you - the men who struggle with the emotional pressures that life can bring, and who may not feel comfortable seeking speaking up or seeking help because at the end of the day, they’re “okay”. I want to share these reflections, so that you can share back.

Not just for the men. But for the women who support us and make us better everyday. For our friends and colleagues that form community around us. For older generations, so that they can learn things about themselves that they weren’t able to in the past. And for younger generations, so that they can recognize when they are loved, know that it’s okay to NOT be okay, and remember that better days are always ahead. That’s what reflection is all about: looking back, but only so that you can move forward. Vamos. by @oye_cisco

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a year ago