Fitting the Bill
Peter Vagenas was apprehensive when his coach, Sigi Schmid, asked him to room with the new guy on the Galaxy’s preseason trip to Chile.
Vagenas already had a roomie in Alexi Lalas and Galaxy players were weary of Major League Soccer assigning to their team high-profile foreign imports who imploded under the pressure of performing in Los Angeles.
But right away, Vagenas noticed something different in the demeanor of Carlos Ruiz, a 23-year-old forward from Guatemala City.
Ruiz was humble and hungry, unlike Mexican stars Carlos Hermosillo and Luis Hernandez, who had joined the Galaxy on the downside of stellar careers in their homeland.
“Carlos Hermosillo came here and I don’t care if he didn’t score one goal, he’d still be the greatest [Mexican] soccer player that ever lived,” Vagenas said. “Luis Hernandez had established himself at the top as well so when they came here, nothing was ever going to change that.
“Carlos [Ruiz] came here using this to establish himself. This is his steppingstone. He’s looking to excel and to go to higher heights. We can sit here and put down [Hermosillo and Hernandez] compared to Carlos but they were at different points in their careers. This was do-or-die for Carlos.”
He’s done it ... with aplomb.
Ruiz, named the league’s most valuable player on Friday, has led the Western Conference champion Galaxy to its fourth MLS Cup title game, Sunday against the New England Revolution at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass.
After leading MLS in goals with a franchise-record 24 in 26 regular-season games, among them nine game-winning scores, and finishing second in the league scoring race to New England’s Taylor Twellman, 52 points to 49, Ruiz has set playoff records for goals, seven, and points, 16.
“It’s all about hard work,” Ruiz said. “With my team in Guatemala, Municipal, I learned a strong work ethic. I’ve just carried it over to here and things have been very good for me and for the Galaxy.”
Hermosillo, who played with the Galaxy in 1998 and ‘99, and Hernandez, 2000 and ‘01, combined for only 26 goals in 64 regular-season games and caused acrimony in the locker room by being part-time players, splitting time with their national and club teams during the heart of the MLS season.
Ruiz, meanwhile, won over Galaxy players with his penchant for scoring goals immediately and his easygoing off-field manner.
“He’s made this his first team; there is no other team,” said Galaxy captain Cobi Jones, a U.S. national team veteran who had seen Ruiz with Guatemala in international play. “I told [the other Galaxy players] that he was a good player and his temperament fit in right away, hanging out with the guys. That was a big difference from the other [foreign] players that had been here in the past.”
Ruiz agreed.
“From the moment I met these guys in Chile, we’ve been friends,” he said. “That’s so important -- to have a good relationship with your teammates on and off the field. We’re all friends here.”
The Galaxy may be his team of the moment, but Ruiz’s first squad holds a special place in his heart.
Growing up playing barefoot pick-up games in the dusty, unpaved streets of Guatemala City’s Zone 21 barrio, Bellos Horizontes, Ruiz was a natural as a goalkeeper, a position at which he won numerous awards when he began playing on his barrio’s organized team.
Yes, the most prolific goal-scorer in MLS began his soccer career stopping goals. So why the switch?
“Our team was so good that I never had any action as the goalkeeper,” Ruiz said. “I wanted some action so I made the switch and became a forward. I think it’s worked out for the best.”
When he was 12, Ruiz joined about 1,800 other youngsters at an open tryout for a spot in the prestigious youth academy of club team CSD Municipal. Fewer than four years later, Ruiz had not only picked up his nickname, Pescadito (Little Fish), the lone boy in a four-daughter family was also the only player from the colossal casting call to make it to Municipal’s parent club.
His natural scoring ability generated interest from Europe and Ruiz spent a frustrating seven months with Greek first-division club PAS Ioanina, where he scored only one goal and, he claims, was never paid.
Despite his difficulties in Greece, the Galaxy remained intrigued and signed him as a discovery pick on Feb. 5.
There have been no regrets and Schmid has been impressed with the variety of ways Ruiz has scored.
“There’s been headers, penalty kicks, free kicks, shots from outside the 18[-yard box], putting away rebounds,” Schmid said. “It’s not like you can say this guy only scores goals in one particular way. He’s always sniffing around, so he scores goals in so many ways.”
And he scores with amazing frequency. Counting the regular season, exhibitions, U.S. Open Cup matches and the MLS playoffs, Ruiz has scored 43 goals for the Galaxy.
Perhaps no other goals have been as thrilling, though, as the game-winning headers he put on San Jose at the end of the regular season and at Colorado to clinch the Galaxy’s spot in the championship.
“Just call me Pes-cabeza,” Ruiz said after beating the Earthquakes, a takeoff on his moniker which, when translated very loosely, means Fish-head.
Still, his success leaves the Galaxy and MLS to wonder if maybe Ruiz has been too good, that he’ll again catch the eyes of higher-paying foreign leagues. Ruiz, one of an all-time high four Guatemalans playing abroad, has always dreamed of playing with Necaxa in Mexico.
“He’s physical, doles out as much [punishment] as he takes and plays through pain,” said Lalas, who’s taken the 5-foot-9, 170-pound Ruiz under his wing and owes him a wristwatch from a wager that Ruiz would score more than 15 goals. Indeed, Ruiz led the Galaxy in both fouls committed (71) and fouls suffered (71).
“The league’s littered with busts, foreign players who have come in and either haven’t been able to handle the pace of the game that’s played here or thought it was going to be a vacation. Carlos is neither.”
The married father of two daughters, Ruiz has found a home with the Galaxy, if only temporarily. And it all began in a lonely hotel room in Chile.
Recalled Vagenas, “I found out really quickly why [Schmid] asked me to room with Carlos. He had just played in Greece and he spoke more Greek than English, and I speak fluent Greek, so we just stayed up all night speaking Greek.”
Vagenas’ father moved here from Planitero, Greece. “Now we speak three languages to each other [Greek, Spanish and English] on the field,” Vagenas said.
“He made me a bet at the beginning of the season that he would be fluent in English in three months. Obviously that didn’t work out. His English now is about as good as his Greek.
“I guess you could say it’s all Greek to Carlos.”
And it’s all good for the Galaxy.
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Focus of the Attack
Never in league history have two teams relied so much on single players to provide goals as the Galaxy and New England, which will meet Sunday in the MLS Cup. The Galaxy’s Carlos Ruiz became the first player to account for more than half of his team’s goals, with New England’s Taylor Twellman not far from that mark. The top 10 (with player’s goals, team’s goals and percentage):
*--* Player, Team Year G TG Pct Carlos Ruiz, Galaxy 2002 24 44 545 Taylor Twellman, New England 2002 23 49 469 Mamadou Diallo, Tampa Bay 2000 26 62 419 Roy Lassiter, Tampa Bay 1996 27 66 409 Joe-Max Moore, New England 1999 15 38 395 Stern John, Columbus 1998 26 67 388 Stern John, Columbus 1999 18 48 375 Raul Diaz Arce, D.C. United 1996 23 62 371 Jeff Cunningham, Columbus 2002 16 44 364 Eduardo Hurtado, Galaxy 1996 21 59 356
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Ruiz to the Rescue
Nine times this season, Carlos Ruiz scored with 15 or fewer minutes left in regulation to give the Galaxy a victory or a tie:
*--* * March 23, vs. D.C. United (2-1) -- Tied game in 85th minute, won it with a penalty kick two minutes into overtime * April 6, vs. Chicago (2-1) -- Scored game-winner two minutes into overtime * April 13, at Dallas (1-1) -- Tied game in 85th minute * July 4, vs. San Jose (2-1) -- Broke tie in 87th minute * July 21, vs. Columbus (2-1) -- Broke tie in 75th minute * Sept. 7, at Chicago (2-1) -- Overcame 1-0 deficit with goals in 79th and 87th minutes * Sept. 14, vs. San Jose (1-0) -- Scored four minutes into second-half injury time * Sept. 21, at San Jose (1-0) -- Scored on penalty kick four minutes into second-half injury time * Sept. 25, vs. Kansas City (3-2) -- Won playoff opener with goal nine minutes into overtime
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