This article contributes to the contemporary discussion of the connections between the histories of football and the histories of children in different societies. Based on interviews with professional footballers’ members of the Colombian national team in the 1960s and 1970s, this article analyzes how football promotedcommunity building between children and other social groups in Colombia’s main port city: Buenaventura. Drawing on Lave & Wenger’s concept of Community of Practice we analyse how footballers’ narratives offer clues to enrich our knowledge about children’s heterogeneity and what football invites them to live.