Valentino Sanabria was six when he decided he’d start saving up for tickets. Now he’s practicing with national teams and living his dreams of seeing live matches
https://people.com/meet-the-10-year-old-earning-chore-money-to-attend-the-world-cup-12000453
Diane Herbst
Tue, June 16, 2026 at 3:01 PM PDT
5 min read
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Key Takeaways
- Valentino Sanabria, 10, saved over $600 by doing chores to earn tickets to two Uruguay FIFA World Cup games in Miami
- His passion for soccer began in preschool and he now plays competitively with dreams of becoming a professional player
- Valentino plans to keep saving money to attend more World Cup games including the finals at MetLife Stadium
One day in 2022, after excitedly watching the Uruguay national team win a FIFA World Cup game on TV, Valentino Sanabria, then 6, told his mother that when the event came to the United States in four years, “I wanted to go there and watch a game for myself,” he recalls.
She made him an offer he couldn’t refuse: Do chores for $2 a task, and you can earn the money to buy tickets. He happily accepted the challenge.
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“So every day before school,” says the rising fifth grader from Boca Raton, Florida, “I would wake up at 6 a.m. and make my bed, prepare my breakfast, take out the trash, wash the dishes.”
Valentino, now 10, accomplished something that didn’t surprise anyone who knows this doggedly determined soccer player and fan. He saved every dollar he made and hit over $600, enough to buy two pairs of tickets to watch his favorite team, Uruguay, compete in two matches at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium in June.
Credit: Carolina SernaMore
“I was screaming. I was running around the house. I was so happy,” Valentino tells PEOPLE of the moment he found out he scored the tickets. “Oh my God. I jumped in the pool. I started doing flips all around the house. I was crazy happy.”
The joy was well worth the hundreds of days Valentino rose before the sun to do chores while most of his classmates were still fast asleep. On some days, he earned as much as $10.
He then stashed the cash in an oversized wallet that became increasingly difficult to close. “Oh yeah,” he says, “it’s stuffed up.”
Valentino not only saved his chore money, but “every birthday gift he’s ever gotten,” says his mother, Carolina. “Every holiday when his uncle would give him money to spend, he saved it all.”
At times, Valentino was tempted to dip into the wallet. “I always wanted to spend some of my money on toys,” he says, “or if I wanted to go somewhere or buy something. But I couldn’t because I knew that it’d all be worth it to go to the World Cup.”
Sometimes the goal felt impossible. “Oh yeah, I was doubting myself a lot,” he says. What helped was watching pro soccer games, oftentimes with his grandfather. “I was like, ‘I really want to go to one,'” he says. “I love how intense it is and love seeing the atmosphere, I think it’s really fun and cool.”
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Valentino’s passion for soccer started as a preschooler, and by the time he was six, “he said he didn’t want to be in any other sports anymore. He just wanted to focus on soccer,” Carolina says. “He just was obsessed and all day just wanted to play soccer, soccer.”
Now playing left wing, right wing or striker on a competitive travel team, Valentino dreams of one day becoming a pro. “Yeah, that’s what I want to be when I grow up,” he says.
Credit: Carolina Serna
On Thursday, June 11, Valentino got a taste of playing with pros when he and his travel team had a scrimmage against the Curacao national team, a 2026 FIFA World Cup competitor training at nearby Florida Atlantic University.
“It was really fun, we tied 1-1 which was pretty cool,” he tells PEOPLE. “It was crazy, they were next level. To play with them was something else, it was once in a lifetime.”
Valentino’s mother has no doubt that his determination will have him playing with pros again in the future.
“He’s very driven and disciplined with everything he does,” she says. “He never wants to miss a soccer practice. He doesn’t miss a game. At the end of the day, that’s the most important thing, that he’s committed and he follows through with his responsibilities and his actions. He said he was going to go to the World Cup and he followed through.”
Valentino’s special love for the Uruguay national team was spurred by his father, who lives there, and other family members from the country. “Also, I go there every year and they have a great team,” he says, “and I just love it there.”
Credit: Carolina SernaMore
Two years ago, Valentino met several players from Uruguay’s national team when they were in Miami, and two shirts signed by players are framed and hanging in his bedroom.
When he met them and excitedly shared that he was saving money to see them play, “they were like, ‘Oh, that’s cool. I hope you can come,'” Valentino recalls.
Now that he’s achieved that goal, Valentino will be taking his mom to see Uruguay versus Saudi Arabia on June 15, and his grandfather to the match against Cape Verde on June 22.
“It’s going to be crazy,” he says. “It’s going to be heated. I’m going to love it. I know I’m going to love it.”
Not to sit idle, Valentino has another goal: attending the FIFA World Cup finals at Met Life Stadium, which involves making many more beds and trash take outs. “I’m still earning money and I still want to see if I can go to any more games,” he says. “If I can go to the finals, that’d be amazing. That’s my dream!”
Read the original article on People
