CARSON — Maybe instead of exporting all of our top Mexican-American talent, we should be recruiting it? I mean, if we want to have any hope of catching the world.
We as in us, as in the U.S., as in the USWNT, the G.O.A.T. when it comes to women’s soccer programs. You know the credentials: Four World Cup championships, four Olympic golds, nine CONCACAF Gold Cups, the longest continuous No. 1 ranking in history, atop the mountain from 2008 to 2014. A 71-match home unbeaten streak at one point.
And so, sure, I can hear echoes of the familiar refrain now, that baked-in assumption: If a girl is good enough to be on the U.S. National team, she’ll be on it … because it’s a hard team to make.
For a long time, it was tough to argue. Hard to quibble with who might not have been included on such an exclusive roster when those teams were having so much success. There’s just so much talent in America, even if potentially promising players from Idaho and and Texas, Torrance and Moreno Valley started to matriculate south, it was easy to suggest they just weren’t good enough, those girls.
But could they be? Would they be?
Sí se puede.
Of course, it would’ve taken some foresight about what might happen when the rest of the soccer-mad world started to take women’s soccer seriously. To imagine how quickly everyone would start making up the ground Title IX staked us.
They’ve done more than close the gap, they’ve created one: I just witnessed a Mexican team that came into this CONCACAF W Gold Cup with 10 American-born players on its 23-woman roster leave the U.S. – a team with no Latinas on its current squad, by the way – in its wake Monday night at Dignity Health Sports Park.
Watched them outclass us. Out-think us. Outpace us. Outplay us. The final damage: 2-0, a sublime, poetic entry by the women into the longstanding “Dos a Cero” rivalry between the U.S. and Mexican men’s teams.
And, oh, is this is a rivalry now too. Maybe you questioned it beforehand, considering the United States entered with a 40-1-1 advantage and having lost to Mexico only once, 14 years ago, as Alex Morgan remembers well: “The last time we lost to Mexico was in 2010, and honestly, it was on a baseball field in Cancun with things being thrown on the field and more of a long-ball situation.”
But now, it’s on. If the United States is up for it. Morgan, again: “Today Mexico was the better team. Mexico beat us all around. With their aggression, getting to the first and second balls, executing set pieces, throw-ins, restarts, whatever it was.”
After Mexico’s dominant 2-0 victory over the USWNT in CONCACAF group play on Monday, Alex Morgan reflects on the state of women’s football worldwide: It’s gotten really good. pic.twitter.com/60nGyhE4qI
— Mirjam Swanson (@MirjamSwanson) February 27, 2024
This wasn’t fluky, it’s trendy: Last June, Mexico’s U20 team – including Fullerton’s Maribel Flores and Pico Rivera’s Val Vargas – beat the United States 2-1 at the 2023 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship.
There might have been a meltdown happening among USWNT supporters across the country and on Twitter, but you know what? This Mexican senior team that hasn’t been to a World Cup since 2015? It’s good.
Credit Liga MX Femenil, the Mexican women’s league that debuted in 2017 and has taken off since, with a handful of Mexican-Americans allowed per roster – many of whom were on the pitch Monday.
Credit Pedro Lopez, who took over as coach in 2022 after Mexico failed to qualify for either the 2023 Women’s World Cup, the 2024 Olympics or the CONCACAF Women’s championship – results clearly beneath what should be expected from this group.
Credit these players.
Maria Sanchez, the forward-thinking forward who was born to Mexican immigrants in Idaho. She never played club soccer so she wasn’t on anyone who was anyone’s radar as kid; she might as well have been honing her skills in outer space. Now, at 28, she’s the National Women’s Soccer League’s highest-paid player, a creative, relentless attacker who is a joy to watch.
We could sure use someone like her, but she’s spent almost a decade dreaming of dethroning the United States.
“Obviously, I’ve been with the Mexican national team for nine years now and one of my biggest goals and something I always dreamed of was to beat the U.S.,” she said Monday night, smiling and switching between Spanish and English in the post-match mixed zone. “And now today I was able to live that. Obviously, it’s a very happy moment, but it’s only hopefully the beginning to something historic.”
I’d call that a threat, if it wasn’t more of an outright promise.
Credit Kiana Palacios, a former UC Irvine standout from Lake Forest; Karina Rodriguez, a former UCLA Bruin defender born in Torrance; and Diana Ordonez, the 5-foot-11 Riverside native and a teammate of Sanchez’s on the NWSL’s Houston Dash. They all were on the pitch Monday night.
Credit Jasmine Casarez, the havoc-wreaking winger from Moreno Valley, who started pelting the United States with shots as soon as she subbed in for Sanchez in the 68th minute, creating a pair of Mexico’s nine corner-kick opportunities.
I watched Casarez play as a freshman at Canyon Springs High School, where she was a preternaturally smart, talented contributor on a diverse team of neighborhood kids who barnstormed their way to the CIF finals and semifinals in consecutive seasons.
Could I have imagined then that, in 2024, I’d be watching her giving the United States the what-for before an impassioned Mexico-leaning crowd of 11,612?
No, but I didn’t peg Kawhi Leonard – once a Canyon Springs student, too – as a two-time NBA Finals MVP, either. You really never know who someone is going to develop into with time and opportunity and training, eh? Eh?
Crystal Lopez, who was Canyon Springs’ lightly recruited senior striker who put in 41 goals when Casarez was a freshman, was in the stands to watch her former teammate help make history Monday. There to witness Mexico hand the United States its first loss on home soil against CONCACAF competition since 2000 – an 80-game upbeat streak shattered.
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Lopez grew up rooting for the United States and her parents’ Mexico – noticing, yes, how rare it was to see a player with Mexican heritage on the U.S. team.
Not that there haven’t been any – Mexican-Americans Sofia Huerta and Ashley Sanchez represented the U.S. at last year’s World Cup, the first time a U.S. World Cup roster included two Latinas since Mexican-American Stephanie Cox (Lopez) and Cuban-American forward Amy Rodriguez were on the U.S. team in 2011.
But there could have been more, and probably should have been. And there will really should be now. Because this melting pot that is the United States – which, for what it’s worth, in 2019, boasted 19 players among The Offside Rule podcast’s annual unofficial global ranking of the “100 Best Female Footballers in the World,” but last year was credited with just seven – needs reinforcements if we’re going to keep up.
They’re here already, but we’re gonna need to bust open that old pipeline. Gonna need a bigger tent.
I’m had a feeling. Mexico 2, USA 0. Just a sublime performance by the women in green. The world done caught up — and, I’m sorry, but we might think about keeping some of the Jasmine Casarezes here to develop into world-class ballers. https://t.co/Rno4qPvqtY pic.twitter.com/yXsMV0LSKQ
— Mirjam Swanson (@MirjamSwanson) February 27, 2024