For Edgar Castillo, the decision as to which national team the 21-year-old New Mexico-born soccer player would play for in the upcoming Olympics wasn’t that hard. He would play for the one who wanted him, which was Mexico, the birthplace of his ancestors and issuer of his second passport. Oh sure, he wanted to play for the US, but they never called. Why? Castillo’s size may have been the reason why he was never given a proper chance by the US Soccer Federation, even though he was in their camps and played in their leagues, as well as the New Mexico player of the year as a sophomore. Well, now “The Gringo” is a big man in the Primera División playing for Santos Laguna and is rumored to be going to Club America. Hopefully his choice fellow Mexican-American Oscar De La Hoya can agree was the right decision.

Even more frustrating for United States soccer officials, Castillo said he would have liked to have played for the United States but never attracted much interest until Mexico reached out to him first.

“It would have been nice — to be from the U.S. and play for the U.S.,” Castillo said in an interview last week when he was in the Los Angeles area with Santos for the SuperLiga tournament. “I was wondering what the U.S. was thinking, why they were not calling me.”

Yeah, in an age where David Beckham is asking US soccer to raise its game to attract world talent, it turns out we have it in our backyard and we’re letting it loose. The article goes on to say the United States Soccer Fed has started an outreach program so something like this doesn’t happen again, but that just means that we’ve wasted a generation and have to wait until a burned-out Cristano Ronaldo washes up on to our shores to tell us again that soccer is almost here in the US. Hopefully by that time, he’ll be right and not just saying it to sell some jerseys.

Born in United States but Playing for Mexico [NY Times]
Image [esmas.com]