Cuellar Rises to the Call

Thirty-two years after competing in his first Olympics, Leonardo “Leo” Cuellar is going back for a second helping.

In 1972, at the tragedy-marred Munich Games, Cuellar was a 20-year-old midfielder on Mexico’s soccer team, a player whose unruly beard and mop of black hair made him an instantly recognizable figure.

Today, Cuellar is 52, clean-shaven, silver-haired and the coach of Mexico’s women’s national team. Against all odds -- and realizing Cuellar’s most optimistic expectations -- the team qualified for Athens by ousting Canada, which had finished fourth in the 2003 Women’s World Cup.

In one sense, that brought Cuellar full circle.

In 1972, one of his fellow Olympians was Art Gonzalez, a goalkeeper on the U.S. soccer team that also qualified for the Munich Games.

Today, Gonzalez’s daughter, Monica, a former Notre Dame standout, is heading for Greece as Cuellar’s on-field leader, the captain of Mexico’s team.

Times change, but despite his accomplishments as a player and coach over the last three decades -- including his starting role at the 1978 World Cup in Argentina -- Cuellar still recalls 1972 in a wistful way.

“We finished fifth,” he said, “and it was one of the greatest experiences that I ever had as an athlete -- to be part of that tournament, to share my place with some of the best athletes in the world.

“That’s one of the things that I try to tell the girls. It’s a dream. It’s something unique. The World Cup is a tremendous accomplishment and a tremendous atmosphere, it has a unique taste because it’s just pure soccer, but the Olympic Games is something special.”

Cuellar could not believe it when his team qualified for Athens with a 2-1 upset of Canada at San Jose, Costa Rica, during regional qualifying play in March.

“We saw Leo right after the game and he was like, ‘Pinch me, pinch me,’ ” said Julie Foudy, captain of the two-time world champion U.S. women’s national team. “He was so excited.”

For Cuellar, it was more than a victory.

“It was the answer,” he said, “to all those times when I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t sleep because I was asking myself: ‘What am I doing? Where am I going? This might not even survive tomorrow. Somebody from the federation could say ‘no more’ and that would be it.’ ”

Qualifying for Athens opened eyes at Mexico’s soccer federation and bought the program four more years.

“It was the answer to all those days of hard work,” Cuellar said. “All of a sudden, the whistle blew and we were in the Olympics.

“For several days, it didn’t sink in completely, because immediately after the end of the game my mind started rolling: ‘What do we have to do now? How are we going to improve this? How are we going to prepare this team?’

“So there hasn’t been a respite, but I definitely enjoyed it.”

Mexico will play world champion Germany and Asian power China in the first round of the 10-nation women’s Olympic soccer tournament, providing Cuellar with two Herculean tasks. But he has a history of overcoming odds.

Born in Mexico City in 1952, he played professionally on both sides of the border -- in the Mexican league with the UNAM Pumas and in the long-defunct North American Soccer League with the San Diego Sockers and San Jose Earthquakes.

He was the coach at Cal State Los Angeles for 11 years, and for three of those years also coached Mexico’s women on a voluntary basis, even paying his way back and forth between Los Angeles and Mexico City.

Finally the federation hired him full-time to bring Mexico up to the level of the U.S. and Canada, the region’s runaway powers.

Cuellar’s friends were taken aback.

“They say that I’m crazy,” said Cuellar, self-described as “kind of Bohemian, but with the discipline” to enforce change.

“It obviously helps that I had a nice career and that I played in the Pan American Games, the Olympic Games and the World Cup for my country and that I was respected for what I did on the field,” he said.

“That helps a lot because it has opened a lot of doors for me to get support and to get the things that we need little by little.”

Cuellar also has gained some heavyweight backing, including that of two former Mexico men’s national team coaches, Miguel Mejia Baron and Bora Milutinovic.

Their eyes and thousands of others were opened last summer during qualifying play for the 2003 Women’s World Cup. Mexico advanced to a two-game, home-and-home playoff against Japan for a World Cup berth.

The first game was in Mexico City and ended in a 2-2 tie. Vastly more impressive than the result was the Azteca Stadium crowd of 95,000.

Nothing like that had happened before for the women. It was unimaginable and Cuellar’s friends were nonplused.

“They said, ‘As a coach, we give you a 7. As a promoter, we give you a 10 because you almost filled the stadium,’ ” Cuellar said, laughing.

Mexico lost the second game in Tokyo and failed to reach the World Cup. That might have signaled a downturn for Mexico’s women, but qualifying for Athens has restored the program’s momentum.

Certainly, the players all believe in Cuellar.

“He’s incredible,” Monica Gonzalez said. “He has high expectations. He’s hard on us, but he also knows when to let loose and have a good time. He’s got so many wonderful qualities that I often think without him, if he were ever to go, what would happen to this team? We definitely wouldn’t be where we are today without him.

“He does so much more than just coach. He does so much administrative stuff. He goes and fights for us within the federation and also outside. He’s kind of like a father figure to a lot of the girls on the team. I guess above all he’s approachable, we can go to him.”

Maribel Dominguez, the team’s unquestioned star, echoed the thought.

“Leo is an excellent person and an excellent coach,” she said. “What he has done for the women’s game in Mexico is just outstanding. He’s never satisfied. He wants to continue to learn, to continue to grow. He gives that to the players. He has made us believe that we can be one of the best teams in the world.”