Goal-Oriented
He doesn’t figure to play all that much, not with such stalwart forwards as Jared Borgetti and Omar Bravo on the team.
But while Mexico is in the Southland for its first two matches in defense of its CONCACAF Gold Cup championship, there won’t be a more scrutinized bench player this weekend than Juan Pablo Garcia.
That’s because the 23-year-old Garcia is not only considered the future of Mexican soccer, but also the hope of struggling Chivas USA.
“I’m very proud and very happy to be with this institution, and I want to show what I can do on the field,” Garcia said in Spanish when he was introduced Saturday amid great fanfare and high expectations. Garcia had been acquired by the Chivas of Guadalajara mother ship from Mexican first-division Club Atlas with the intent of shipping him to Chivas USA as a refuerzo, or reinforcement.
“I’m a professional. This is a team in transition ... “
Then he choked up. Not on emotion. Something literally got caught in his throat and he needed a minute to gather himself, prompting a few cynics at the gathering to joke that Garcia finally realized what he was getting himself into with Chivas USA.
Then again, Garcia’s nickname is El Loquito, or Little Crazy.
Chivas USA, a Major League Soccer expansion franchise that entered the league riding a wave of bluster from Guadalajara, has been a phenomenal failure thus far. It has already fired one coach, is an MLS-worst 1-13-3 while scoring 15 goals -- only two clubs have scored fewer, with 12 apiece -- and has given up a league-high 39 goals for a mind-boggling goal differential of minus-24. Plus, the club has yet to sell out a home match. Team president and co-owner Antonio Cue has acknowledged Chivas may have “underestimated” the strength of MLS, but he insists his franchise is on a “five-year plan.”
Recent fortunes have been far different for the Mexican national team, which begins the 12-nation Gold Cup tournament in Group C tonight at 7 playing South Africa at the Home Depot Center before meeting Guatemala on Sunday at the Coliseum.
Mexico, ranked No. 6 in the world, is coming off an impressive fourth-place finish in last month’s FIFA Confederations Cup in Germany, where it shut out World Cup champion Brazil, 1-0, beat Asian champion Japan, 2-1, and earned a scoreless draw with European champion Greece.
Leading against Argentina, 1-0, in a semifinal, Mexico gave up an extra-time goal and fell on penalty kicks. Then it lost to host Germany, 4-3, in extra time in the third-place match.
Coach Ricardo Lavolpe is bringing 11 members of the Confederations Cup team to the Gold Cup, including Borgetti, who had five goals in Germany, Bravo, plus midfielders Luis Ernesto Perez and Antonio Naelson, making four-time Gold Cup champion Mexico the favorite again.
About the only negative Mexico has faced lately has been the one-year suspensions to midfielder Salvador Carmona and defender Aaron Galindo, who were both kicked out of the Confederations Cup after testing positive for a banned substance, reportedly the anabolic steroid norandrosterone.
However, as far as Garcia is concerned, he is living his dream, being able to represent his homeland in the green jersey of El Tri before donning the red and white stripes of Chivas. He hopes to play in Europe one day.
Chivas had to outbid Club America and Tecos for Garcia’s services, with the intent of sending him to MLS in hopes of righting the Chivas USA ship.
Reports out of Mexico had Atlas wanting to transfer Garcia to Club America, which then would have sent the striker to Tecos. Garcia, though, stuck to his handshake agreement with Cue and, after his contract with Atlas expired June 30, he signed with Chivas, upsetting a few Mexican clubs because he essentially acted as a free agent in an owner-driven market.
“This was not about money,” Cue said. “The other teams have a lot of money. We’re lucky that he wants to have to chance to be the future of the league. This is a guy that can turn around the team.”
Said Thomas Rongen, who was “reassigned” from Chivas USA coach to its director of sport: “I know there are some obstacles to overcome, [but] to turn things around, it starts with Juan Pablo Garcia. ... He is a cornerstone for this franchise.”
Garcia is approaching it all as “a challenge.”
“It’s very important for me in my life and my career,” he said. “It’s an experiment, but it’s not so easy.”
Garcia has excelled as a goal scorer, something Chivas desperately needs, what with its current 222-minute scoreless streak and 11-match winless streak.
In five years with Atlas, Garcia scored 26 goals and had 11 assists in 116 appearances, including 77 starts. In 19 appearances in the Apertura 2004 tournament, he had eight goals and three assists. His goal Nov. 28 gave Atlas a 4-3 aggregate win over cross-town rival Chivas in a quarterfinal.
In international competition, Garcia represented Mexico in the 2003 Pan American Games and later started for El Tri in its 4-0 defeat of the United States that kept the U.S. out of the Olympics for the first time since 1976. He was with Mexico in the 2004 Summer Games.
Last week, Garcia scored three goals in a 5-2 scrimmage victory over America’s “B” team.
Which again raises the question: Why run the risk of sullying your career path with an MLS bottom-feeder in Chivas USA?
“They’ve given me an endorsement, given me value; I’m set financially for the rest of my soccer career,” said Garcia, who wants to wear No. 20, a jersey already worn by rookie defender Esteban Arias. “The team is changing, changing for the better. I want to get stronger and help the team get better.”
But with Mexico likely to advance to at least the Gold Cup semifinals, Garcia, who will assume one of Chivas USA’s two remaining youth international spots, would not play for Chivas USA until August, provided his work visa is approved by then.
“I hope for luck and I wait for it,” Garcia said. “We’re going to do it. It’s going to happen.”
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THE FACTS
Mexico vs. South Africa
CONCACAF Gold Cup
at Home Depot Center
7 p.m., Univision
