A family from Ecuador lands in Queens, New York, seeking to find the American Dream. They came for opportunity and find that "opportunity" is often a set of choices. For the two oldest brothers, these choices take them on different paths. El Capitan is a fictional story, but it is a slice of the real America, a place of immigrants past and present - a topic ever more so relevant. Rio, the middle son finds his way with the help of an aging group of former futbol (soccer) professionals and others like his English literature teacher, his coach and his best friend Charlie Brown. Rodrigo, the older brother chooses differently and takes the first step of many to find that there is no escape. The allure of easy money in the drug business is Rodrigo"s addiction - that like the narcotic he peddles extracts a heavy price. The story is filled with other "stories", the many small tales of life that the profis tell their young prodigy so he can see his path more clearly - first in adolescence and for the later stages of his life. Rio finds acceptance in his high school soccer team where talent, discipline and teamwork is the lesson of how to succeed. And there is an American girl - Kathy Robinson - the powerful emotion of first love - of teenagers. The climax is unexpectedly like what is happening in the news today - moments of profound joy in the challenge and the victory of sports thrown to the ground when violence comes to visit - the price of bad choices. There is also a young brother at the whipsaw end of the struggles with his older siblings. The author says that this books is about a place called "in between" where the young of other places come to America (or to any new place) to find that they have one foot in the culture of their parents and the other in the American culture. And they find that they belong to neither one. Finding their way out of that "in between" place is maybe as simple as acceptance and accepting - the act of giving and taking, learning and being willing to rethink the walls we build for ourselves. This is what the protagonist Rio discovers along the way, shaping his young life as an American boy and for a future in the great stadiums of the world where soccer (or futbol) is played and glory is found with other teammates.