Chivas USA's Sacha Kljestan looks beyond Olympics
OLYMPICS
Foremost on the Southern Californian's mind is his role in the U.S. Olympic team's opening game against Japan on Thursday. But beyond Beijing he hopes for a berth on European team.
Somewhere in Huntington Beach not all that long ago, the sound of breaking glass could mean only one thing: Sacha Kljestan and his friends were at it again.
"My dad built us a small goal for Christmas one year, and we took out all the furniture in our living room like twice a week," Kljestan said. "We smashed so many windows."
The shattered glass was a small price to pay. The soccer skills he learned on the living room carpet have carried Kljestan far, putting the Chivas USA midfielder on a trajectory that very likely will take him to one of Europe's glamorous soccer teams in the not-too-distant future.
For the moment, though, the Beijing Olympics are foremost in the 22-year-old Southern Californian's thoughts.
On Thursday, in Tianjin, China, Kljestan will be playing for the U.S. against Japan in the opening game of the men's Olympic soccer tournament. After being a semifinalist at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, the U.S. men's soccer team failed to qualify for Athens four years later. The Beijing Olympics offer a considerable challenge for the U.S. in the first round, with games against Japan, the Netherlands -- the Dutch are the group favorites -- and then Nigeria.
For Kljestan, the Olympics are the realization of a long-held dream.
He started playing soccer at age 4, the inspiration coming from his Serbian father, Slavko, a former semipro player in what was then Yugoslavia.
"Every day growing up, he said, 'Hey, if you want to go to the park and play, I'm here for you,' " Kljestan said. "Once or twice a week we'd go over to the park. I'd shoot penalty kicks on him."
Kljestan's older brother, Gordon, now with the New York Red Bulls, also helped shape the future Olympian.
"He was always bigger than me," Kljestan said. "I'd always try to keep the ball from him and he'd always steal it. We always battled each other."
By his early teens, Kljestan was hooked. One way or another, soccer would be his career. He worked at it daily, becoming so comfortable with the ball -- juggling it, dribbling it, passing it, shooting it -- that any move was almost second nature.
Then he began watching and learning.
"At about 14 or 15, I really started watching MLS and really got into international soccer, trying to emulate the way these guys play and the way they did things," he said. "Especially a guy like [French World Cup winner Zinedine] Zidane, who I watched a lot."
