http://www.desertcompanion.com/article.cfm?articleID=26
Hybrid clubs: Viva ... Amexico?
Two
decades after Gomez started out, Larry Gutierrez, an Argentinian
immigrant and a plumber by trade, is trying to navigate a similar route
with his son, Brian.
Brian "grew to love the game" in the first
seven years of his life in Buenos Aires, "where it's normal [for
children to play soccer with] ...skill, with flair, to play with a smile
on their faces," Gutierrez says. When Brian was 8, now in Las Vegas,
Gutierrez enrolled his son in Premier, another large, state-authorized
club. The boy was the only Hispanic on the team. The team waived certain
fees, making it easier for the plumber to keep his son on the club. But
he also began seeing the same approach to the game that concerned
Manuel Gomez.
"Americans like to play more with strength," says Gutierrez. "It's more robotic. ... It's very physical."
By
the time Brian was 12, Gutierrez had his son playing with a team of
mostly Hispanic players that competed in one of the state-authorized
leagues. Over the next few years, he sought to perfect the formula of
combining the best of both worlds, even finding a team, Cordica, whose
staff had gringos and Hispanics. The team won important tournaments.
Within three years, Brian was now on another team, Players Club, that
was mostly Hispanic. The U.S. men's national youth team chose four of
the team's players, including Brian, to try out in Florida. Brian didn't
make the cut. But in late August, Dinamo Zagreb, a Croatian team that's
played in major European tournaments, invited him to a tryout.
^^^ To je od 2010