Mexico is best choice for him
He decided to play for Mexico after U.S. was eliminated. Now he fights for roster spot.
Jonathan Gonzalez, who wanted to play for U.S., might make World Cup roster.
Jonathan Gonzalez watched the U.S. national team’s final World Cup qualifier on TV last fall and still hasn’t forgotten how he felt after the 2-1 loss to Trinidad and Tobago knocked the Americans out of this summer’s tournament in Russia.
“I was bummed out,” he said, mustering about as much disappointment as a teenager can muster.
How much that inspired what happened next, he won’t say. But less than three months after the U.S. team trudged off a soggy field in Trinidad, Gonzalez declared his intention to play internationally for Mexico, which will take part in the World Cup.
“A lot of people think it’s just a decision that’s made from morning to night. But it took me a long time to figure it out,” Gonzalez said Wednesday. “I felt being in Mexico would probably be the best for me.”
For the time being Gonzalez is in San Jose, 100 miles from Santa Rosa, where he was born to parents with U.S. citizenship and Mexican roots, giving him a choice as to which country he wanted to play for. That makes Friday’s friendly between Mexico and Iceland in Santa Clara a home game for Gonzalez, who will be playing in front of nearly two dozen friends and family members.
If he plays, that is. At 18 he’s the youngest player on the Mexican team and, having played only 33 minutes for El Tri, one of the least experienced. But the hamstring injury that sidelined the Galaxy’s Jonathan dos Santos is giving him an opportunity to fight for a seat on the plane to Russia.
“I will give ourselves until the last day to make the [roster]. And up to that day, they will all be considered,” Mexican coach Juan Carlos Osorio said.
Though Gonzalez’s present is consumed by thoughts of the World Cup, he insisted his decision to play for Mexico was made with the future in mind as well.
“That was part of it,” he said of the chance to play in a World Cup before he turns 20. “But I just thought that in Mexico I could develop better. It just felt like it was my environment.”
Gonzalez has actually been playing in Mexico since 2014, when he joined the youth program of Liga MX club Monterrey. That was the same year he played his first game with an age-group U.S. national team.
He would go on to play 18 more times for U.S. age-group teams without getting a callup to the senior squad. And that left the door open for Mexico. So after Gonzalez became a regular in midfield for Monterrey’s first team last summer, Osorio reached out.
There’s wide disagreement about what happened next.
Gonzalez, who had long expressed a desire to play for the U.S., reportedly was disappointed when he wasn’t called up for the Americans’ November friendly with Portugal. U.S Soccer says it elected to let Gonzalez stay with Monterrey, which was in the Liga MX playoffs.
Gonzalez said no one from the U.S. talked to him. Thomas Rongen, U.S. Soccer’s chief scout under former coach Bruce Arena, told CBS Sports he had visited the player’s house three times.
“Most of that was wrong,” Gonzalez, who made his debut with Mexico in January, said of the varied stories. “I did get something in that last moment when they already knew Mexico was already talking to me.”
The U.S. has successfully recruited other Mexican Americans, such as Jorge Villafaña, Joe Corona, Omar Gonzalez, Michael Orozco and Edgar Castillo — all of whom decided to play for Uncle Sam.
Gonzalez made another decision. And because of that, he still has a chance at playing in the World Cup this summer.
“Every time I go to sleep I just find a way to try to get into the squad,” he said. “Whatever I can do to get better and demonstrate what I’m capable of doing. “