Robert Coronado

“Most people don't understand how hard it is.” 🇺🇸🇲🇽 There were two Liga MX players in the USMNT 2010 World Cup squad— Hérculez Gómez and José Francisco Torres. Also known as “El Gringo”, Torres joined Herc on his VAMOS podcast to speak about choosing the USMNT over Mexico 🗣️ “It was very hard. I had both choices in my hands and it was hard for me because I didn't want to let down my mom or my dad,” Torres said. “Well.. not letting them down, but I just didn't want to feel, you know, I didn’t want to disappoint somebody.” “At a time after the World Cup, everything starts going better, like after that point.” “Peter Novak saw something in me, and I remember the call, ‘Hey, José, do you want to come join us for the Olympics?’ And I was like, let me think about it.” “And then when Jesús Martínez finds out, he was like, ‘No! Cabrón, no! You can’t do that, you’re with Mexico.’ And I was like, ‘You can’t decide for me, I gotta decide.’” “Then he was like, ‘Yes but there is a reason why you’re here in Mexico, you’re La Joya (The Jewel).’ So everything in my head just starts spinning, man.” “I'm like, what I do? What I do? I talked to my mom, I talked to my dad, and then they were like, ‘You know what? It's your choice. You're not gonna disappoint anybody. You have to decide, you're the one playing. You're the one there. You decide.’ So I get all my teammates.” “I get [Miguel Ángel] Calero, [Gabriel] Caballero, Aquivaldo Mosquera, Jaime Correa, [Andrés] Chitiva, Chaco [Giménez] and Damián Álvarez. So I get all those players together, and we're in a conversation. I'm like, ‘Hey guys, look, you guys play for different national teams. I need your help.’” “Oh, and I grabbed my coach, Enrique Meza. So we were talking and they were like, ‘What do you want?’ I was like, I just want to make it. I want to play on the national team, but I want to play for the national team for a long time. I don't want to just play and, you know, play a few, two or three games, and then I'm done.” “So I remember Gabriel Caballero saying, ‘You know what, gringo, I think you should go for the U.S.’ And I was like, why? He's like, ‘You’re gonna have more possibilities. You're gonna be playing, and you have a chance at the World Cup. Maybe in Mexico, you play a few games. And what if you do go to the World Cup and after that you're done? You never know.’” “So all those pointers bro, they got to my head, and I had to decide right then, like, because I remember the U.S. was playing Cuba, and then they played in Trinidad, the two games before me saying yes, that was the two games that were coming up.” “So I had to decide then and there and it was the U.S.” “It’s hard man, because you grew up in both cultures. One day, talking to Chris Ivory, the running back, he was going through a situation, and I called him. I was like, ‘Hey, how you doing?’ He was like, ‘Well, I can talk to you, because you played at a professional level. If I talk to you, you know what I mean.’” “So I think when you talk to a normal person and you're telling them your story, he's not going to understand you very much.” “Why? Because he didn't play it. Maybe he played at an amateur level, but he never played at that level where you're in that situation and you have to decide which route you want to go to.” “So, yeah, most people don't understand how hard it is because your dad's Hispanic and your mom's American, and you're like, ‘Okay, I gotta make the right choice, so at the end, I don't regret it.’” Torres played 26 games for the USMNT from 2008 to 2013. Born and raised in Texas to a Mexican dad and American mom, he spent time in Mexico with Pachuca, Tigres, and Puebla. He ended his career with stints at Colorado Springs Switchbacks and Ri Grande Valley FC.