It was her last night at Pepperdine before resuming training with the Mexican National team, yet junior forward Anisa Guajardo was kind enough to sit down for an interview and share what can only be deemed as a true success story. “I haven’t even finished packing yet,” she confessed.
Guajardo was called up to join the Mexican National Team late last year and has been training with them in preparation for next year’s CONCACAF Women’s Olympic Qualifying tournament. They play against Guatemala, Dominican Republic and the United States. They need to get top two in their category to compete against the top two of the contending group. “Ten days of intense soccer” she added.
Back in 2008, Guajardo made the Mexican U-17 National Team and participated in the CONCACAF U-17 Championship in Trinidad and Tobago.
“After this past season at Pepperdine they became interested again. I went with the team to Martinique to play against France, and I guess they liked what they saw” she humbly adds. She will return to school by the first week of February. “I talked to my professors, who were very understanding and accommodating about missing school. My coaches too. They are extremely excited for me”, Guajardo said.
The California native lived in Mexico, Dominican Republic and El Salvador before she returned to the U.S. She had always played soccer, but had never been on an actual team.
“The concept of positions was new to me. When you play in the street everyone is everywhere. I just liked having the ball at my feet and going at people, you know?” Training with the Mexican team, though, isn’t very different from practicing with the waves. “Everything is in Spanish and it is at a higher altitude, but you get used to it after a couple of days. For soccer, in general, you work on positions and technical skills. And, of course, you always condition and weight lift.”
Guajardo has a dual citizenship, which brought up the question of playing for the Mexican team rather than the American team.
“I just came to the realization that I am not the kind of player the U.S. is looking for. There is a difference between American and Mexican soccer. The U.S. focuses on athleticism and, don’t get me wrong, they have great soccer players, but they want a player that can go go go. With Mexico it’s not so much a job, it is more a passion. You are playing for a reason. Whether it is to represent a nation, its people. It’s deeper than anything the U.S. plays for. There is more pride in the Mexican game.”
On the topic of Mexican style of soccer versus other countries’, Guajardo discussed the Latino soccer field; Mexico vs. Argentina. For the past two world cups these two countries have come face to face, with the latter coming out victorious. Guajardo considers Mexico superior.
“It is not cohesive or fluid with the Argentinean team. You can tell that the players are not playing with each other.” We acknowledged they have, arguably, the best player in the world, but Messi does his best when he is surrounded by other brilliant players. That is the pattern with any player. If they are surrounded by talent, they feed off the positive energy. When a team is on the same wavelength, they’re unstoppable,” she said.
Guajardo said she feels that way about her own team.
“We’ve been working hard these past two years. We are a close group of girls on and off the field. The game is not solely based on ourselves anymore. The reason the team played so well this season is because we don’t have one superstar, one Messi in the Argentinean team, but rather the Spanish team.”
She said her goals after college are to “keep playing soccer until I physically cannot play anymore. If I get picked up by a team in Europe I want to play for a team in England, hopefully Chelsea. And, along with that, keep playing in the national team. That’s the dream.”
