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Published on: 5/2/2007
Last Visited: 5/9/2007
Dave Albee: From Novato youth to high-level pros, Hugo Perez still setting goals for soccer in the U.S.
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Dave Albee: From Novato youth to high-level pros, Hugo Perez still setting goals for soccer in the U.S.
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Former U.S. national soccer player Hugo Perez is an assistant coach for the California Victory of the USL first division.He also coaches in the Novato Youth Soccer Association.
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They were still in grade school when Hugo Perez, now a Victory assistant coach, was at his peak and probably the best soccer player in this country when not enough people in this country truly cared about the sport.
"He can still play," said Victory head coach Glenn Van Straatum, smiling at the sight of Perez mixing it up with his players.
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"I still want to play to get fit," Perez said, "but not to play on the field."
Perez is focused on coaching the game these days and his reach and influence extends from the pros to youth programs.Thankfully he's still coaching the Novato United Division I under-16 boys and U18 girls teams for Erik Visser, director of coaching for the Novato Youth Soccer Association, because Perez is headed to the big time.He recently
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"When he started as a player, he fought very hard for the rights of players and every team at that time was trying to do shoe deals. É Hugo fought to get his own shoe deal because he was a big star player," said Victory general manager Terry Fisher.
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"Before Eric Wynalda became popular, Hugo was doing the work."
Wynalda, you may know.He is a soccer commentator for ESPN.He played in three World Cups for the United States.He was with the San Jose team in the MLS.He is the National Soccer Hall Fame in Oneonta, N.Y.
Perez is not.That's a shame.He's had a broad, deep and fundamental impact at so many levels of soccer in the United States from its grassroots to its glory.
Yet, last month, Perez missed by two votes of being inducted into the HOF this August with Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy and Alan Rothenberg.
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Instead, Bobby Smith received one more vote than Perez from the Veterans Committee to earn enshrinement.
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"It doesn't really frustrate me," said Perez, who lives in Vallejo."I don't know what the process is.It doesn't really bother me."
Perez played for the United States in the 1984 Olympics and, in 1988, when he was the championship MVP for the San Diego Sockers when they won the MISL championship, he helped Team USA qualify for the Olympics.He was on the U.S. World Cup team as a 30-year-old reserve in 1994, when the American team raised the consciousness of soccer in this nation by advancing to the Round of 16 to play eventual World Cup champion Brazil at Stanford Stadium on the Fourth of July.Yet Perez also should have been on the 1990 World Cup team, when he was in his prime, but U.S. coach Bob Gansler left him off the roster because he felt Perez wasn't match-fit coming off a fractured fibula.Perez insists he was and blamed a personality conflict with Gansler that kept him off that World Cup team.
The next year Perez was named U.S. soccer athlete of the year.He is perhaps the most underrated player in the history of U.S. soccer and was so good that the talented midfielder could beat the competition with one foot.He still can.
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Despite the uniqueness of his left foot and his personal battles for players' rights, however, Perez is not in the Hall of Fame.
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After Perez retired as a player, he moved to San Francisco where he became principal for the Living Hope Christian School.He still teaches Christianity and coaches soccer.
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Perez coached with the Dons for a couple of years but had to bow out when USF changed its training schedule, which conflicted with his work at Living Hope.But, when Cal graduate Dmitry Piterman, who owns a pro soccer team in Spain, decided to acquire the California Victory as a USL expansion franchise, Perez got the itch to get back into coaching at a higher level.
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"This is professional," Perez said.
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That's very possible for Hugo."
It would complete Perez's coaching career.His son, Amders, is playing for him on his U16 Novato United team, along with Visser's son, Brian.Perez, though, wants to coach at a more challenging level.
"Honestly I would like to coach one of the (U.S.) national teams," Perez said.
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That's the attitude to take and Perez is preparing to take that leap of faith.Hopefully, his influence in soccer in this country as a player and now as a coach will someday soon land him in the Hall of Fame where he belongs.He's done his work.
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