Santa Ana’s Having a Ball-- or <i> Futbol</i> --With World Cup
Benito Guadalupe has positioned five televisions in his house, two equipped with cable to capture World Cup reruns and one outfitted to plug into the cigarette lighter in his car--just in case he’s in transit during a perfect soccer moment.
Oscar Vargas is happily cashing in, selling World Cup shin guards, flags, stickers and posters to the fans who are flocking to his 17th Street store, one of the few official World Cup shops in Orange County.
It’s the same story down the street at Las Palmas Mexican restaurant, where Uruguayan-born owner Raul Muniz says he is fielding 150 calls daily about the games he is showing on his big-screen television. And at Teresa’s Jewelers on 4th Street, patrons are busily filling out entry forms for a chance at free World Cup watches if they correctly guess today’s opening-day scores.
“It’s all our customers are talking about,” Saldivar said.
As the games get underway today in Chicago and Dallas, Santa Ana is Soccer Central. That should come as no surprise in a city that boasts 14 of the county’s 19 Latino Soccer leagues, which have 19,000 players, most of them adults.
For hard-core soccer fans, the World Cup--which comes to Pasadena’s Rose Bowl Saturday--is more than just a chance to watch great athletes compete. For the region’s tens of thousands of residents who were weaned on the sport and have long mourned this country’s seeming lack of interest, the games are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the redemption of soccer in the United States.
“We’ve never had this opportunity. The American people aren’t big lovers of futbol , but we’re hoping the World Cup will change things for us, that people will start to notice us,” said Javier Hernandez, 35, who heads a soccer team of restaurant workers called Tierra Caliente after their hometown in the Mexican state of Guererro.
“We could really use some help,” said Hernandez, as he pondered the worn turf and weak lighting at Santa Anita Park Wednesday night before his team took the field.
Those who came to watch the local teams compete rattled off the names of favorite World Cup players and made their allegiances clear:
“For Mexico, of course, because we are of Mexican origin,” said Delica Hernandez, 15, of Orange, raising her arms in a show of victory.
Juan Calderon, 23, of Santa Ana, who heads a team called Teloloapan named after that Guererro city of 70,000, said his team’s game this Sunday has been canceled. Instead, the players will cram into Calderon’s Santa Ana living room to root for the Mexican national team as they play Norway.
“We’re proud of Mexico, very proud. But if we lose, we’ll lose playing well,” said Calderon. “There’s a lot of excitement. I think it will make soccer much more popular. Maybe we’ll get better soccer programs in the high schools.
“These teams take kids out of gangs. Soccer gives them discipline, it gives them something to do on the weekends. It can turn them into stars for our future.”
Other fans, such as Benito Guadalupe, are more focused on the present. The 27-year-old Guerrero native has been busy positioning the televisions around his home.
In the Santa Ana house he shares with six family members, there is now one 20-inch screen in the living room, with cable, an identical set-up in one bedroom, and two other strategically placed sets.
The fifth set in his car is a safety net, he explained. When the United States played Mexico in a Rose Bowl practice game recently, Guadalupe had a minor car accident and got home with only 20 minutes left in the game.
“I know it’s against the law to watch TV while you’re driving. You could have an accident,” said Guadalupe, who paints logos on shirts for a living. “But this is just in case.”
For Oscar Vargas, a Costa Rica native and longtime soccer lover who opened his Soccer Star store on 17th Street in October with his nephew, the World Cup in the United States is “like a dream come true.”
“The soccer community is hoping for a miracle. If the World Cup does really well, then people think a flame will be started,” he said.
The store started out selling $10,000 in goods a month, and is now doing about $25,000 a month in sales, said his nephew, Carlos Vargas, 27. They also sold about $60,000 in tickets to the recent U.S.-Mexico practice game.
“Colombia and Mexico are really hot, especially replica jerseys and flags to take to the stadium,” Carlos Vargas said. “Every day we do better than the last day.”
None of the World Cup games will be held in Orange County, but the Colombian team is practicing at Cal State Fullerton, and the Romanian team is training at UC Irvine. The U.S. team is based in Mission Viejo.
The region’s soccer enthusiasts are hoping the enthusiasm for the sport will hold.
The 19 Latino soccer league presidents have been meeting over the past few months with Sergio Velasquez, publisher of the Spanish-language newspaper Miniondas, based in Santa Ana. Their goal: to carry the momentum of the World Cup, and seek corporate endorsements and more city support for the young soccer enthusiasts.
“The World Cup could open a door for us, in a very big way,” said Humberto Lopez of Costa Mesa, president of the Restaurant and Hotel Workers Soccer League.
“A lot of us know how to play really well, but we don’t have the resources,” added Santiago Garcia, 23, of Orange, who took up the game at 10 in Mexico City and now plays on a semiprofessional team that’s part of the Orange County Soccer League.
“We need role models, someone to come and say, ‘You’re good,’ and give us a hand.”
* WORLD CUP: More coverage begins on C1
