Police Officer Collin Wynter and New York Red Bulls goalkeeper Bouna Coundoul both grew up playing soccer barefoot, because they were too poor to buy shoes.
That’s why Wynter and the NYPD soccer team are headed to the slums of South America next Tuesday. In Colombia, the Finest footy fanatics will pass out equipment donated by the Red Bulls of Major League Soccer, and teach needy kids the beautiful game.
“We want to inspire the kids,” said Wynter, 40, a Queens cop who grew up in Antigua and Brooklyn. “People usually see the strict side of the NYPD. We want to show them the friendly side.”
“By changing the life of one kid, we can change the world,” added Coundoul, 29, who grew up in Senegal and the Bronx.
The NYPD team will fly to Bogota, Colombia, for a week of free soccer clinics and charity matches, and then shoot over to Manizales, the city where Red Bulls prodigy Juan Agudelo was born.
“The kids there don’t have much,” said Agudelo, 18, who grew up in New Jersey and now nets goals for the U.S. Men’s National Team. “They need equipment and they need hope.”
The Colombia trip will be the fifth overseas outing for the NYPD team, which has already traveled to Costa Rica, Ecuador, Korea and Peru, playing matches against local police teams.
The soccer-crazy city cops – who patrol Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx – make the trips at their own expense and vacation time.
Mostly immigrants, many of them hail from Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, Guatemala, Egypt, Jamaica and Trinidad. Their goal is to turn dirt-poor youngsters away from drugs and gangs.
“Most of us come from the same background as them,” said Lt. Commander Ron Meija, 47, of the NYPD Crime Investigation Division. “We try to bring the kids together with local police.”
The team has visited orphanages and crime-infested areas where even local cops are afraid to go. When they step on the field, the hulking police officers say they melt.
“That hug and kiss and smile from one of the kids is worth it,” said Pete Meehan, 44, the only retired cop on the squad.
Soccer also helps the NYPD players cope with life on the beat.
“Somebody gets shot and it affects you,” said Curtis Baksh, 48, a former Brooklyn housing cop now with the NYPD Quality Assurance Division. “But then you go and run and sweat and play hard. Soccer is your release.”
The NYPD team enters charity tournaments all over New York. Some people mistrust the police, said Bronx traffic cop Pablo Penaherrera, 49. “This shows we’re not bad guys,” he said.
The Red Bulls will collect new and used soccer equipment for the NYPD trip at their match this Sunday at 7 p.m. in Harrison, N.J.
BY DANIEL BEEKMAN
DAILY NEWS