Soccer Team, Host Families Build Bonds That Last : Sports: Over the past two years, World Cup players have been welcomed into the homes--and hearts--of South County residents.

On a suddenly red-hot U.S. soccer team, Tony Meola is a celebrity.

He is young, photogenic, a budding movie star who has been on the cover of national news and sports magazines--one of the few team members who draws stares on the street.

But in the eyes of three young sisters from Mission Viejo, the international soccer star is just Tony.

For Riki-Ann, Lindsey and Stacy Serrins, Meola, 25, is like a big brother who pops in occasionally to muss their hair, play video games and use the family swimming pool.

“He comes over for dinner lots. He plays games with us. He’s fun,” said Stacy Serrins, 12. “It’s like having a big brother around.”

The Serrins are one of several families who have hosted Meola and other U.S. players since the team arrived at their Mission Viejo training site in December, 1992.

For 18 months, these surrogate families fed the players home-cooked meals and helped familiarize them with local banks, restaurants and post offices.

“We’re really a support group for them,” said John Bolger, whose family hosted star midfielder Claudio Reyna. “We’ve all made ourselves available as best we can to be a help to these guys.”

And in some cases, as the months preceding the World Cup steadily passed, the bonds grew.

When Meola married last August, the Serrins flew to New Jersey for the wedding. The Meolas and the Serrins do the small things families and friends do together: go to dinner, movies and spend time at home.

“It’s a relationship that has evolved tremendously over the last year and a half,” said Phil Serrins, a local chiropractor. “Tony is a man who is very family-oriented, and he’s really taken to our girls. He loves being part of a family unit.”

The Mission Viejo Soccer Foundation, which brokered the deal that brought the U.S. team to Mission Viejo, also found the 20 or so host families and matched them with players.

Team member Thomas Dooley, a German with dual citizenship, could speak English, but his wife’s grasp of the language was limited. The foundation found Tom and Mirid Weidner, a German-speaking family.

Many dinners and outings later, Dooley said, “It’s like we found some very good friends in a new place. We’ll be friends long after the World Cup is over.”

Most of the families are foundation members and part of the Mission Viejo soccer community, a city that was crazy about the sport long before the United States beat Colombia in World Cup action on Wednesday.

With 3,700 boys and girls enrolled in leagues, Mission Viejo has the second largest American Youth Soccer Organization group in the country. Soccer clubs for adults and children play almost year-round throughout the city.

Soccer also is big in the surrounding South County area: Almost 10,000 kids play in organized leagues throughout the Saddleback and Capistrano valleys. Current U.S. soccer team member Joe-Max Moore graduated from Capistrano Valley High School and UC Irvine.

“This is a soccer mecca,” foundation President Bill Irvine said. “Kids around here grow up playing soccer.”

After the foundation succeeded in attracting the U.S. soccer team, its next dream was to have the players become part of the community, Irvine said.

“We couldn’t ask for a nicer, more caring, family-oriented group of guys,” he said. “The team has given clinics, visited hospitals and given more of themselves to our kids than we had a right to ask.”

Posing for pictures with their host families after a practice last week, team members were polite but stiff before the media. But afterward, with a couple of soccer balls and a handful of kids to play with, players changed.

Mike Sorber spun Anthony Santoro, 10, and Joseph Griffith, 8, in dizzying circles as he weaved up and down the field playing keep away. Normally intense and serious, Meola smiled broadly and joked with the Serrins girls as he hooked a few corner kicks toward a goal.

“They always have time for the children, and the kids love them,” said Debra Griffith, whose family hosts Marcelo Balboa. “We spend a great deal of time cutting out articles and finding posters that Marcelo is in.

“My oldest boy shags balls on the (training center soccer) field and has the greatest time,” she said. “My boys know this is a wonderful experience, but I think many years from now it’s really going to hit them that ‘Wow, I was part of the World Cup.’ ”

The only negative experience for some of the families came in recent months as players were cut from the U.S. squad.

“It was really hard for those families to see their players get cut from the team,” she said. “They had gotten to know these players and now they have to move on. We all felt really bad.”

But as the United States advances through the tournament, knowing the players personally is making the World Cup an even more exciting experience for the host families.

“And these are all pretty dedicated fans to begin with,” Irvine said.

Irvine and Phil Serrins were part of a group of Mission Viejo fans who flew to Detroit last week to watch the team’s first game.

“Because of our personal relationships with the players, we were really pumped,” Serrins said. “I’ll tell you how strong the feeling was: the weather was miserable. It was at least 90 degrees and humid. But we were so excited (watching the team tie Switzerland), we were still getting goose bumps.”

Once the World Cup is over, no matter how the U.S. team does, Serrins said his family will treasure its relationship with the Meolas.

“It goes beyond soccer,” he said. “The Meolas and our family will be friends forever.”