Score!!!

Lopez slips a small white square packet of cash — the coach's preferred form of delivery, the player says — into Salazar's fingers, which are curled around the burrito. Lopez is discreet, but Salazar less so; he tears open the packet and unfolds the bills tucked inside. The couple in view: crisp hundreds. Salazar says the wad is his pay for a month's worth of games in the supposedly amateur league.

Many coaches grudgingly accept that they'll never have the means to attract the athletes Farolito can. Others laud Lopez for helping his players financially while sustaining an important sport for the Latino community. "It's a sport that impassions all Hispanics," says Roberto Figueroa, whom most call "Macho" for the strong kick that lifted him from the banana farm he grew up on to the Honduran national team and the Spanish pros. "Hondurans, for example — we come from a country that's really downtrodden by politics, by war. And so for us, soccer helps us remember the greatest joy our country has had. We've always been known for the soccer players that have left to play internationally."

A former Farolito player, Figueroa started his own second-division team in the papy league this year. "This gives me the possibility to feel what I felt, like today I have to go to sleep early because tomorrow I have to play early," he says. "There's a big difference because I'm 50 now, but you still feel the same nerves."

And coaches like Lopez help players to continue doing what they love. "I admire [Lopez] because he's one of the few people that invest in amateur soccer at the local level," says Suamy Alvarez, a former Farolito player who now coaches the papy Honduras team. "If I had money, I'd do the same."

While most say no one bets in the papy league — "No one would bet against Farolito," one player explains — an assortment of microeconomies percolate on the polo fields, the league's temporary post while its nearly 30-year home at Crocker-Amazon Park is laid with synthetic turf. One Salvadoran woman hawks from Igloo coolers the pupusas and turkey tortas she woke at 3 a.m. to prepare. A photographer takes the day off from shooting weddings and quinceañeras to snap action shots and sell the photos he prints in his car for $5. An appreciative fan might slip a player a $20 for a skillful play.

And just about everybody knows that some of the past-their-prime athletes are paid to play — and not just for Farolito, but in similar leagues across the Bay Area and nationwide.

Lopez vigorously denies it, a strategic part of a don't-ask, don't-tell charade that has persisted for years. The papy league is a recreational league, not for profit, so paying players is against the rules.

But Salazar isn't worried: "The league doesn't care," he says.

League president Nelson Pino is a jovial 62-year-old former Marine who wears a black military beret and carries a cellphone that rings with the theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Ruling over the Saturday matches in the tent that serves as league headquarters, he blasts unruly behavior in the papy newsletter, be it a player leaving a game to openly take a leak beside the field or teams showing up in mismatched kit.

Yet for a guy who doesn't put up with bull, Pino sticks to the book when asked if anyone is getting paid: "Not that we know of," he says. "That's against the statutes."

Ric Olivas, president of California Soccer Association North, the FIFA-affiliated body that registers the players, is more frank. "A lot of them pay [players] under the table," he says. And that's allowed? "Yeah, it is. How do we stop it? How do we even know?"

On the poorest of teams, the players themselves split the expenses and the nearly $2,000 annual league dues that pay for fields, refs, and insurance. Many squads cover a combination of expenses: gas, bridge tolls, postgame food and drinks, uniforms and cleats. Others pay just a couple of stars — some players report getting up to $100 per game on other teams — usually in confidence, so teammates don't get jealous. "They still have big egos," Olivas says.

Coaches say the league looks the other way because good players raise the level of play. Indeed, the league treasurer himself, Tony Ramirez, says he paid some players on the now-defunct Victory team up to $100 each. League vice president Rafael Cañas diplomatically says that other teams "don't have the capacity to have professionals."

But Salazar of Farolito doesn't mince words. Lopez "pays everyone," he says. "Everyone. Everyone. Everyone. 50, 60, 100, I don't know how much more." $100, $200? "Some maybe more, some maybe less," he says, adding that he gets a bonus if his team wins the championship. As a fourth-generation professional player, Salazar has no qualms saying that he expects to be reimbursed for his on-field services: "No money, no play. ... It's not for my ego, but for performance. If they don't [pay me], how am I supposed to perform?" He says he earns "a little less" at Farolito than he does at his day job coaching for a club team in Cupertino, but he won't divulge the exact amount: "For professional ethics, I can't say."