Mexican women’s soccer team get its footing

Soccer moms aren’t common yet in Mexico, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t a force to be reckoned with.

In fact, in a country that’s slowly becoming a force on the international sports scene, few teams have risen higher and faster than Mexico’s women’s soccer team. And to get there, they’ve had to beat more than just their opponents on the field. They’ve also had to overcome insufficient funding, a lack of infrastructure, little support and centuries of ingrained social teaching.

“Machismo in Mexico is nearly impossible to remove,” Mexican women’s soccer Coach Leonardo Cuellar explained. “It’s part of the culture. There will always be detractors for women participating in the sport.”

All of which makes the Mexican national team’s success under Cuellar all the more impressive. The Mexican women’s team comes into Friday’s 7 p.m. exhibition at the Coliseum – with defending national champion USC – ranked 22nd in the world, its best ranking ever. Mexico has reached the medal round in three consecutive Pan American Games – winning once – and is the first team from a Spanish-speaking country to qualify for either the women’s World Cup or the Olympic Games.

It did both.

And with a good showing in April’s Olympic qualifying tournament, Mexico could be heading to this summer’s Games in Beijing.

“Women’s soccer in Mexico is still in its infancy,” said USC women’s soccer Coach Ali Khosroshahin, who is also an assistant with the Mexican team under Cuellar. “It’s a real political issue. Soccer in Mexico is political … is a man’s sport. But their eyes have definitely been opened.”

Much of the credit for that goes to Cuellar, a former member of Mexico’s men’s national team who took over the women’s program in 1998 and had it in the World Cup a year later.

“He’s done a great job with the program,” said UCLA Coach Jillian Ellis, whose team played Mexico to a 1-1 tie last week. “It’s such a male-dominated sport that socially you have to change the culture a little bit. That’s definitely happening with more visibility from the women’s team.”

Ironically, the expansion of women’s sports in the United States has also fueled the growth of women’s sports in Mexico. Guadalajara’s Lorena Ochoa, for example, the No. 1 women’s golfer in the world, honed her skills for two years at the University of Arizona before turning pro. And 10 players on Cuellar’s first World Cup team came from U.S. colleges, led by 29-year-old Laurie Hill, who played for UC Santa Barbara and whose mother is Mexican.

In Mexico, the practice of offering college scholarships to athletes is relatively new, and players competing for Mexican schools are forbidden from playing for the national team.

In the United States, meanwhile, soccer is poised to pass basketball and volleyball as the most popular college sport for women. And more than 1.5 million girls are currently playing youth soccer here, ten times the number of women and girls playing organized soccer in Mexico. “We are in transition to create those programs,” said Cuellar, himself a product of the U.S. collegiate system, having coached the men’s team at Cal State L.A.

Cuellar remembers a time not long ago when it would be common to see a 12- or 13-year-old girl in Mexico on the same team with a 38-year-old woman. That wasn’t good for developing new players. “Now we have [an under age 12], U-14 and U-17 national championship. Every state puts a team together for that,” he said. “We see more parents involved and supporting, going to see the games and helping [the girls’] confidence.”

That has even caught Mexican soccer officials by surprise. When Cuellar’s team played Japan at Azteca Stadium in a runup to the 2003 World Cup, nearly 100,000 fans showed up. Organizers, who were expecting just a fraction of that, opened only one gate, leaving tens of thousands of spectators stranded outside when the match started.

But as women’s soccer has taken root in Mexico, the country has begun to produce its own players, such as Maribel Dominguez who, in 2005, became the first Mexican woman to sign with a men’s franchise, only to have the contract voided by the country’s national soccer association. So now, instead of waiting for an invitation from Cuellar, many U.S. collegians with ties to Mexico are openly seeking a spot on the national team – so much so that USC freshman Ashli Sandoval, one of four Mexican Americans on the Trojan roster, views tonight’s match as something of an audition for the Olympic squad.

But if Mexico is weaning itself from dependence on U.S. colleges, it’s not quite ready to cut its own path just yet. “They don’t have the infrastructure or organized leagues down there to really develop talent,” UCLA’s Ellis said. “But they watch the game and they’re very sophisticated about the subtleties of the game.”

The style of play is distinct on each side of the border. However, it’s no longer a given the better players will come from the north.

“The girls from Mexico develop their touch and notion of the game much better than the girls from the U.S. In Mexico, it’s more of a certain style of possession of the ball and having that technical ability,” said Mexico’s Marlene Sandoval, who played soccer at Cal State Fullerton.

Cuellar, whose team has already beaten Arizona State and will follow Friday’s match with games against Illinois, Indiana and Notre Dame, has noticed the change. “Coming to these colleges, we used to be on the losing side,” he said. “Then we got ties. Then we started winning.”