Mike Sorber has made a smooth transition to life and soccer South of the Border.
Get a red card, go to the beach.
Life has been good for Mike Sorber since he moved to Mexico City in January. Even when things went awry, they worked out well.
He was ejected for two yellow-card offenses in a 0-0 tie with Puebla in mid-April. “For a foul in each half,” Sorber said.
Coach Ricardo Ferreti didn’t read the 23-year-old Missourian the riot act.
“He told me to take a vacation,” said Sorber, whose starting spot in UNAM’s midfield would be waiting for him after he served his one-game suspension on the beaches of Cancun, Mexico’s Caribbean resort town.
Sorber — for many a surprise starter for the 1994 World Cup team — returned to the lineup for 1-1 tie with Necaxa, which marked Pumas’ 15th straight game without a loss and secured a quarterfinal playoff spot. The streak ended on the last day of the season, with a 2-1 loss to Toluca.
“We’re the youngest team in the playoffs,” Sorber said, “so nobody thinks we’ll go far, but that’s better for us. We have confidence because of the streak. We have a solid defense and an excellent goalkeeper. If we get one or two chances and finish them off, teams will have difficulty beating us.”
UNAM also has a series of good results to draw confidence from. Since Sorber joined, it tied not only Necaxa, but performed well against the other three top finishers of the regular season, tying Chivas of Guadalajara 1-1 and Club America 0-0 and beating Cruz Azul 1-0.
Pumas’ best known player is flamboyant keeper Jorge Campos. He recently shed his fluorescent jerseys for an all-white suit, but his goalkeeping and his foot skills — he scored a penalty kick in a 3-0 win of Tampico Madero April 23 —
remain intact.
“He’s the best goalkeeper in Mexico,” said Sorber, who patrols the central midfield.
Pumas’ other elder statesman is stopper Claudio Suarez.
“Campos is captain,” Sorber said, “but Claudio and Campos have been on the team the longest and do the most talking. David Oteo, one of the young players, plays stopper alongside Suarez and Oteo has played every minute of every game this year.”
While Sorber plays in front of the stoppers, Israel Lopez and Miguel Angel Carreon, two more products of UNAM’s exemplary farm system, play wide in the back. Both made their First Division debuts this year.
“They’re two young wingbacks with great speed,” Sorber said.
Braulio Luna, 20, a starter on Mexico’s 1995 runner-up Pan Am Games team, plays to left of Sorber and is considered Mexico’s rising star. Antonio Sancho plays on the right.
Brazilian Tiba plays behind the forwards.
“He’s our clever Brazilian,” Sorber said, “but he got a red card in the last game, so we’ll miss him for a game or two.”
Rolfo Garcia and Jorge Santillana are first-choice front runners, but Santillana has been out injured for four weeks.
“He should be healthy for the playoffs,” Sorber said. “Goals are our problem. We don’t have a Carlos Hermosillo or a Francois Omam-Biyik.”
Not yet they don’t, but if history is an indication, the club will produce a great scorer soon. Pumas launched the careers of both Hugo Sanchez and Luis Garcia.
Mexico’s player farm
UNAM is run by alumni of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico — players often attend the university — so it lacks the deep pockets of Televisa-owned teams Club America and Necaxa, or Cruz Azul, owned by a prosperous cement company.
The club survives by bringing up players through its youth ranks and selling them when necessary.
“Year after year, Pumas produces excellent players and year after year supplies the league’s other teams with talent,” wrote Ernesto Castellanos in a Balon article headlined: “The solution to Mexican soccer? Pumas!”
One of the architects of the Pumas system was former U.S. coach Bora Milutinovic, who brought Sorber to Pumas and has let him live in his Mexico City house. After ending his playing career with Pumas, Milutinovic became a club youth coach and eventually the head coach, leading Pumas to the 1981 title.
That championship team included three members of the current team’s staff:
Ferreti; his assistant, Pablo Luna; and Mauricio Pena, the club’s general manager. Such continuity is typical at UNAM.
“The club is like a family,” Milutinovic said. “The president [Guillermo A. Alvarez] is like family. And when Mike went there, he wasn’t treated like a stranger. He was welcomed.”
Other members of Milutinovic’s 1981 championship team were Sanchez, Luis Flores and Manuel Negrete. When Milutinovic became Mexico’s national team coach, his UNAM teammate, Miguel Mejia Baron, took over Pumas and guided it to the 1991 title. He now coaches Mexico.
“Pumas is like a big family,” Sorber said. “Before big games, Mejia Baron comes into the locker room. He practiced with us last week. I think Ferreti still asks him and Bora for advice. Other former players visit us and practice with us.
“Pumas is very tight. It has such good tradition that makes for a good environment. And the fans are very supportive. Whole families come to the game. We have support in every city.”
Sorber says his off-field transition has gone smoothly.
“You can get everything here you can in the United States,” he said. “Only the culture and the language are different. You just have to learn.”
And Sorber is learning. He gave his first TV interview in Spanish two weeks ago.
“He is doing well,” Milutinovic says, “because he is a good person and a good soccer player. The style and the system the team plays is the same that we [the U.S.] played.”
But this year’s playoff hopes are tempered by a weak offense, whose problems were compounded when Pumas sold Argentine Pedro Massacessi to the Yokohama Marinos of the J-League.
When Milutinovic coached UNAM, it had one of the most potent strike forces in Mexican soccer history.
In 1979, Hugo Sanchez and Brazilian Evanildo “Cabinho” Castro were the league’s joint leading with 26 apiece. Cabinho was Mexico’s leading scorer for four straight seasons and is the league’s all-time leading scorer with 310. Sanchez went to Atletico Madrid in 1981 and Garcia followed suit in 1992.
In 1986, Milutinovic had eight Pumas products on his World Cup roster and seven in the lineup. Many of those were brought into professional soccer by Milutinovic.
“That is my greatest satisfaction,” he said, “to bring young players up and see them succeed.”
So it is fitting that Sorber should end up with UNAM. Milutinovic spotted him at the 1991 NCAA final four. The St. Louis-native had not previously been involved with the national team program at any level. Other young World Cup players — like Alexi Lalas and Cobi Jones — played in the 1992 Olympics.
As the World Cup approached, it seemed that only Milutinovic believed Sorber could hold his own in the defensive midfield. And he did, playing particularly well in the 2-1 win over Colombia, when he contributed to both scoring sequences. Sorber was disappointed that Milutinovic’s stint with the U.S. team came to an end in April.
“I think it’s a loss for U.S. Soccer,” Sorber said. “I think Bora was the best man for the job with his record of getting results in big games. The federation had its reasons and I have to respect that.
“I look forward to playing for the U.S. this summer. I don’t know when I’ll be available. The Mexican final is June 4.”
by Soccer America Senior Editor Mike Woitalla