With his first World Cup behind him, Colorado midfielder Pablo Mastroeni has had a chance to reflect on how he got to where he is and what happens next.
To say soccer saved Pablo Mastroeni from a failed life would be a stretch.
He's never been imprisoned, indicted or been implicated in anything sordid or sleazy. He graduated from high school and college, is married and pays his bills. In more than 100 MLS matches, he's been ejected just three times.
Yet by his own admission, the game played a vital role in directing him away from wildness and toward success and fulfillment.
''I was right on the edge for a lot of my life,'' says Mastroeni, who played three games in the World Cup despite not having played in any of the 16 qualifiers. ''It was because I had soccer practice the next morning or a game the next day or a tournament coming up that kept me in line. The game itself was my discipline.''
Playing in the World Cup and establishing himself as one of the top Americans in MLS is only part of an eclectic life that includes such pursuits as reading, growing fruits and vegetables, playing guitar and more traditional jock-like pastimes such as golf and fishing.
His remarkable rise from U.S. debutant to World Cup starter took about a year, but his ascendancy to the national team also expunged nearly a decade of frustration and bureaucratic snafus regarding his citizenship.
And his return to Colorado following the World Cup has imposed yet another burden on him, that of leading his team as opposed to simply playing for it.
''Looking back I made a lot of bad decisions growing up,'' he says. ''I was so lucky not to get into trouble and spend the rest of my life looking for a job. Just alcohol and mischief. I'd get away with taking a golf cart out on the course at three o'clock in the morning. The next week somebody would do the same thing and get caught. The game has been more than just a game to me. It's taken me places and guided my life in a positive direction.''
LEAVING MENDOZA. As Argentines agonized over their team's collapse at the World Cup and a frightening period of political turmoil, one family in one city celebrated nonetheless.
Mastroeni's parents moved with him and his brother to the United States more than 20 years ago. Still, once word got round about where the dreadlocked American midfielder who was stuffing the likes of Portuguese stars Rui Costa and Luis Figo had been born, cell phones and satellites began humming.
''My family in Argentina was getting phone calls at all different crazy times in middle of the night asking about me,'' he says. ''It's kind of ironic the Argentine press would track down my family to talk about a U.S. soccer player.
''It's kind of poetic justice. All the bad-mouthing that most of the world does about U.S. soccer and here they are hounding my family in Mendoza [population: 120,000] which isn't the biggest city in the country.''
Frank and Elci Mastroeni brought their sons to the Phoenix area when Pablo was 4.
''They wanted to raise their kids on their own,'' says Pablo. ''Everyone was always into everybody's stuff. They want to help you so much it's almost overbearing. My mother's brother was living in Arizona at the time so we got our visas and scooted town.''
In Arizona, Mastroeni was 11 when came to the attention of former professional Luis Dabo, who was aggressively elevating his Santos Soccer Club into a top competitive program.
When he returns to Arizona to visit his parents, he also seeks out Dabo, whose tales of waywardness and temptation eventually took root in Mastroeni's psyche.
The key word here is eventually.
''He'd tell me about his time in Portugal, when women would throw themselves at him and everyone wanted to take him to lunch or do this or that,'' said Mastroeni. ''When I was in high school, he'd say, 'Pablo, concentrate now. The girls and the parties will always be there after your career.'
''I said, 'Yeah. Right.' I'd go to all the parties and be involved in all the altercations with the authorities. I was running with the wrong crowd for a while, not the kind of people you associate with.''
One reason he went to North Carolina State, he says, was to get away from some of those influences.
The girls and the parties swayed his thinking at age 15, when he returned
to Argentina to train two months with Buenos Aires club Ferrocarril Oeste.
''They wanted me to stay,'' he says. ''They had the best junior program in the country and would pay a stipend of $100 a month and move me in with a family. But I had this heartthrob of a girlfriend back in the States and there was no way I was going to sacrifice my love life for a soccer game.''
CITIZEN OR NOT? Not until last year did Mastroeni gain U.S. citizenship and thus become eligible to represent his country.
During his rookie year with the Miami Fusion in 1998 he was all set to take the required test, but for the first time was chosen to go on a road trip.
''It was selfish, but I wanted to be part of the team,'' says Mastroeni. ''I was an outcast and not playing so there was no way to get my citizenship done.''
His Argentine heritage had scuttled a chance to play for the United States several years earlier. Former U.S. under-17 coach Roy Rees had brought him into several training camps and he was picked for a tournament in France with the world championships in Japan pending.
''They gave us this sheet with all these things we had to bring and right there in bold was, 'Your U.S. passport,''' he remembers. I'm 15 and I'm dumber than a rock. I go to my Dad and say, 'I don't think I have an American passport.' He says, 'S***, son you don't. You're an Argentinian.''
Senators from Texas and Arizona stepped in to expedite the process, but there was no quick resolution.
''Roy Rees really lost it,'' he says. ''He couldn't believe I wasn't an American. The worst part was having to tell my clubmates why I wasn't going on trips. My memory of it is kind of blacked out.''
Last year Mastroeni finally completed the citizenship process and was sworn in on May 21. Two weeks later, he debuted for the U.S., coming on as a substitute in a 0-0 tie with Ecuador in Columbus, Ohio.
To say he tingled would be a gross understatement.
''It was such a monkey off my back,'' he says. ''It was such a relief. Just being on the bench while the national anthem's playing to finally be a citizen, it was overwhelming. Every national team game since then it means more and more to me.''
During the World Cup, colleagues and friends flocked to his mother, who works as a kindergarten teacher, to talk about her son.
''She said, 'I didn't know you were so famous until my co-workers came in,''' says Mastroeni. ''They would bring in articles about me, or there would be newspaper reporters from the Arizona Republic waiting to talk to her.''
POSITIONAL DILEMMA. The confusion over where and how to play Mastroeni hasn't been limited to his club career.
During coaching changes in Miami he bounced between defense and midfield. Once Fusion coach Ray Hudson assembled a potent attacking force of Diego Serna, Alex Pineda Chacon, Chris Henderson and Preki, he chose Mastroeni to anchor a defense that would sometimes be stranded and left to fend for itself.
''Everyone was free-flowing,'' remembers Henderson, who also came to Colorado when the Fusion folded. ''We had a lot of guys who liked to get forward. But we didn't give up a lot of goals with [Carlos] Llamosa and Pablo back there.''
As recently as last January, U.S. coach Bruce Arena didn't believe Mastroeni was ready to play midfield at the international level. In his first two games against Ecuador and South Korea, he'd been tried at right back, and Arena hadn't rated him highly there, either.
''I don't think Pablo's a midfielder,'' said Arena during the Gold Cup. ''He's never played there, I don't why anyone thinks he's a midfielder.''
Playing as a central defender, Mastroeni helped the U.S. post four straight shutouts at the Gold Cup.
When Chris Armas suffered a knee injury three weeks before the U.S. World Cup opener against Portugal, the U.S. coaches decided to play with two central midfielders to replace Armas. John O'Brien took one slot and either Claudio Reyna or Mastroeni occupied the other.
Helping shut down Rui Costa and Figo, Cuauhtemoc Blanco of Mexico and Michael Ballack of Germany may have surprised some people, but not Coach Tim Hankinson of the Rapids.
Hankinson had taken him first in the post-contraction allocation draft to back up Carlos Valderrama in midfield and add something other than his ability.
In his first MLS game after returning from the World Cup Mastroeni was sent off. After some heated words and several benchings, the Rapids coach sat his World Cup surprise down for a talk.
''My role is to be demanding of everyone, which is something I've had a hard time doing with Pibe, who's such a hero and such a legend,'' Mastroeni says. ''Everyone is taking responsibility for their own game, and that's what's changed from earlier in the season.''
by Soccer America Senior Editor Ridge Mahoney