BOYS’ SOCCER PREVIEW : Monroe Can Finish at Start of Season

Danny Corrales is the new kid on the block and a mama’s boy, but he carries those dubious titles with a smile. His teammates at Monroe High are just happy he’s along for the ride.

Corrales, a native of Costa Rica, emigrated to the U.S. last December. He became eligible to play for the Vikings in the final nine soccer games of a season that ended in the second round of the City Section playoffs.

After going scoreless in his first game, Corrales scored 10 goals in his last eight games, adding firepower to a team with an outstanding midfield and a solid defense.

“We had players who could move the ball down the field but not into the net,” said Elias Andrade, Monroe’s coach. “Danny was exactly what we needed.”

Until that torrid stretch run earned the Vikings a playoff berth and the No. 13 seeding, Monroe had not qualified for the postseason since 1995. That season, the team had a losing record and was the bottom-seeded team in the 32-team playoff bracket.

Corrales’ arrival has coincided with the program’s resurgence, and the Vikings are viewed in the Valley Pac-8 Conference as the primary challengers to Reseda, the defending conference and City champion.

A stocky 5 feet 10 and 165 pounds, Corrales last season feasted on unsuspecting defenders, using physical play and a cannon of a right-footed shot to score.

“Anywhere he can take a shot, he’ll take it,” said Oz Greek, a Monroe teammate. “Teams were trying to force him left because if he went left he couldn’t get off a shot. But he has good dribbling skills, so he got around that.”

Corrales’ mature features and outgoing nature mask his youth, for he just recently turned 16. In a similar fashion, his raw skills and intensity on the field often cloak his game’s lack of refinement.

“He can put the ball in the goal so accurately,” Andrade said. “I haven’t seen somebody like that in a long time.”

Andrade, the Vikings’ ninth-year coach who played at UC Santa Barbara and Cal State Northridge, appears to have one of his best teams in years. Seven starters return from the 1997-98 team, which finished 11-1-4.

Sweeper Ismael Valencia, midfielders Greek and Rodolfo Quiroz and forward Juan Ortiz are standouts. Only Quiroz is a senior and the roster is loaded with talented underclassmen.

Corrales’ path to Monroe began when he was four and his parents divorced. His father, Jose Miguel Corrales, is a prominent Costa Rican businessman who was runner-up in the country’s most recent presidential election.

When Danny Corrales was eight he moved to Panorama City with his older brother and mother, Sylvia Zecca, and attended school in North Hills for more than a year.

When he was 11, Corrales returned to Costa Rica and his small hometown of Paraiso de Cartago, where he moved in with his father and began playing soccer. He quickly blossomed, training with the country’s Youth World Cup team and being tagged as a professional prospect.

The teenager had everything he wanted--except his mother. And when she suggested last year in one of their frequent phone conversations that Corrales rejoin her and his brother, he decided to make the move.

“I left a lot of things and came here with nothing,” Corrales said. “I was the president of my high school, I had a girlfriend for four years, I was happy. It was hard but you do everything for your mother.”

Zecca, a real estate agent and an eight-year resident of the U.S., said she agonized before and after her son’s emigration, wondering if it was a step forward.

“I was so depressed without him but sometimes I feel bad because maybe he had a future over there,” Zecca said. “I left him in Costa Rica because the soccer was so good but I was missing part of my life. Maybe I was thinking too much as a mother.”

Corrales doesn’t want for pampering. Zecca cheerfully admits to cooking his food, washing his clothes and making his bed.

“I spoil him but it’s because we are friends,” Zecca said. “Sometimes it’s hard for kids that age to be with their mother. But with me he says, ‘Mama come here with me, Mama go there, let’s go to the movies.’ ”

Mother and son offer each other romantic advice and work on Corrales’ schoolwork in the hope that he will follow his brother to college.

“This country has better colleges and if he has a chance for a college education, that’s what I want,” Zecca said. “He’s a happy kid and I want him to be successful.”