ESPN Deportes follows the drama of ‘Frente al Reto’
In soccer-mad Mexico, there’s no bigger sporting event than the quadrennial World Cup. Which makes the selection of the World Cup team Mexico’s second-biggest sporting event.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” says goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa. “You don’t know if it will ever be repeated.”
Never mind that it already has been repeated for Ochoa, who has been to one World Cup and is the closest thing Mexico has to a sure bet for this year’s 23-man team. But for the other 50 or so players with a realistic shot at representing Mexico in South Africa this summer, the next few months will be an anxious time.
Which is why ESPN Deportes decided to focus on seven of those players in the two-month documentary series “Frente al Reto” (Facing the Challenge), which debuts on the Spanish-language cable channel at 5:30 p.m. Monday
“The interesting thing about the lead-up to the World Cup, particularly for young players, [is] they really start questioning ‘Am I going to make the team?’ ” said Juan Alfonso, ESPN’s vice president for marketing and program development and the executive producer of “Frente al Reto.”
“We wanted to explore that theme a little more. We wanted to go and ask the players themselves ‘How do you feel? What are your insecurities?’ ”
Answering those questions required the most ambitious project in Deportes’ seven-year history, one that took the production crew to six countries on three continents in less than three months.
The series opens this evening with a half-hour look at 23-year-old forward Andres Guardado, who made a brief appearance in Mexico’s final match in the 2006 World Cup and is playing in Spain with La Coruna. But two of the more compelling stories come in Week 2, with forward Omar Arellano, and Week 6, with midfielder Giovanni Dos Santos.
Both players -- along with their family and friends -- figure to endure several sleepless nights between now and the May announcement of Mexico’s World Cup roster.
Arellano’s brief career has been weighed down by heavy expectations and injury that has limited him to fewer than a half-dozen matches with the national team. And while South Africa was once expected to be his coming-out party, now he’s fighting just to make the team.
“He’s the third-generation star soccer player in his family,” Alfonso said of Arellano, whose father and grandfather played for Mexico’s national team. “Is he living up to his hype? People say he’s sort of fragile. Everybody’s got an interesting story.”
Then there’s Dos Santos, at 20 already a seasoned international veteran. But in the last two years Dos Santos has been transferred or loaned three times, going from Champions League power Barcelona to the Turkish club Galatasaray of the Turkcell Super Lig.
Although the segment on Dos Santos was largely finished by the time he was loaned to Galatasaray last month, ESPN rushed a crew to Istanbul anyway and was rewarded when Dos Santos came off as suddenly insecure and anxious despite the thousand fans who showed up to meet his plane in Turkey.
Yet the most poignant subject may be the only one who has no shot at making Mexico’s team.
Jose Francisco Torres, featured in the eighth and final installment, was born in Texas to a Mexican father and could have played internationally for either country. About a year and a half ago he chose the U.S., earning derision in Mexico, where he plays in the country’s First Division.
“I made a good decision. The decision is working,” said Torres, who now answers to the nickname Gringo.
That doesn’t mean there won’t be anxious nights ahead. Although the U.S. could use a creative midfielder like Torres in South Africa, he’s still a bit of a long shot to make the American team, especially after sustaining a hamstring injury playing for his Mexican club team.
“I’m always hoping for South Africa,” Torres said by phone from Pachuca, where his Mexican club team is based. “There’s not a [roster] yet. So I think I still have a chance.”
