The new Mexican season kicked off Aug. 26 and three of the four U.S. players with Mexican First Division teams started for their clubs.
Tab Ramos scored on a penalty kick for Tigres of Nuevo Leon in a 1-1 tie with Cruz Azul; Marcelo Balboa’s Leon recorded the weekend’s big surprise, upsetting Chivas in Guadalajara 4-0; and Jorge Salcedo made his Mexican debut for Morelia, which tied Atlante 2-2.
Mike Sorber missed Pumas’ 0-0 tie with Club America because of an ankle injury suffered earlier in the week. He expects to ready in two weeks.
Ramos, Sorber, Balboa and Dominic Kinnear arrived in Mexico last January. Kinnear, who saw sparse playing time with champion Necaxa, has moved to the A-League’s Seattle Sounders.
Salcedo, 22, is a California native who starred at UCLA. He played for the U.S. under-17 and under-20 national teams, and was capped at the full national team level in 1994.
Sorber, who helped Pumas reach the quarterfinals last season, played in an all-star game a week before the season opener. The midfielder from St. Louis played for the Mexican league foreign all-stars against Necaxa, which won 2-0 in Azteca Stadium.
“I played midfielder and then stopper,” Sorber said. “Fans picked the team by calling in names from newspaper ads and we ended up with a team of only midfielders and forwards, so I had to play defender.”
Ramos and Balboa had been selected to an even more prestigious all-star game —
the FIFA All-Star Game Aug. 30 in Tokyo benefiting victims of the Kobe earthquake.
Ramos had to cancel at the last minute.
“After the game [against Cruz Azul],” Ramos said, “I was really sore and had kind of hurt my groin. It would be very bad if I went to Japan and got hurt there and then not be ready for next Sunday.”
by Soccer America Senior Editor Mike Woitalla