It is an understatement to say that the path from Uganda to South Carolina is not well trodden. But in the past few years an increasing number of young men from Uganda have been making the unlikely journey to Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina to study and play for school’s soccer team. Winthrop’s connection with Uganda began several years ago, and since that time several players from the East African nation have played for the Eagles. Daniel Ridenhour, an assistant coach at Winthrop, recently traveled to Uganda on a recruiting trip. He spoke with me shortly after returning to South Carolina about his time in the country.

Daniel Ridenhour (L) talking with locals in Uganda (photo: Daniel Ridenhour)

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The only thing more incredible than the fact that brother and sister Alexis and Amber Hernandez both play for youth national teams is the fact that both represent Mexico. The Hernandez siblings have lived their entire lives in California, but in the past year both have worn Mexico’s famous tricolor. Children of a Mexican-born mother and second-generation Mexican-American father, Alexis and Amber are among the latest in the growing number of American-born players returning to their ancestral homeland to play their soccer.

Alexis and Amber Hernandez with Mexican youth national team coaches (photo courtesy of Hernandez family)

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Ed. Note: I don’t normally dabble in “news of the day” type articles so this is a bit of a departure. I wrote this MLS preview and submitted it to the Guardian for consideration, but since I didn’t hear back, I figured I might as well publish it here. A couple of notes on this piece: 1) It was, clearly, written before the England vs. France friendly so keep that in mind, and 2) It was written for a British audience less familiar with MLS. As such, it’s really more of an attempt to put it in context in the US sporting and cultural scene. I suspect that it will be of more interest to readers abroad interested in the place of soccer in the US, but I hope my American readers might find something of value in it as well.

Major League Soccer officials have just one hope for England’s friendly against France on Wednesday: that David Beckham does not get hurt. They are less concerned with Beckham earning his 100th cap than they are with ensuring that he return for Saturday’s LA Galaxy season opener injury-free.

The bubble of hype that Beckham’s arrival in LA inflated was popped by the injuries that kept him out of most of last season. Some fans who had purchased tickets to see Beckham complained - many teams forced them to buy multi-game packages to see the Galaxy come to town - and MLS officials were forced to explain that his injuries were genuine and there was nothing they could do. The off-season has given Beckham time to recover fully, leading to his England recall and a nervous few days for MLS officials.

David Beckham, the face of MLS? (photo: The Offside)

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The case of Chivas’ Jesus Padilla is not the only example of a soccer team in Mexico struggling to define who is, in fact, Mexican. The national team has been embroiled in controversy for much the same reason. The previous national team boss, Argentine Ricardo Lavolpe, angered some in Mexico by using naturalized players for El Tricolor. In particular, former Mexican international and then-Pumas boss Hugo Sanchez harangued Lavolpe for using foreigners such as Brazilian-born Antonio Naelson and Argentine-born Guillermo Franco. Sanchez claimed that if he were in charge of the national team, he would never commit such a sin.

After the 2006 World Cup, Sanchez got his wish and was named national team boss. He stuck with his promise not to select naturalized players until earlier this year when he called up one of Lavolpe’s favorites, Antonio Naelson. Sanchez retreated from his previous statements and relied on the same constitutional rationale that Chivas officials recently employed to justify Jesus Padilla’s spot on their team. “The doors are open for all Mexicans, and the constitution says that they are Mexican,” said Sanchez.

Hugo Sanchez has not been as revolutionary as he promised to be (Photo: FMSite.net)

Hugo Sanchez has a completely different set of problems today. As boss of the Olympic team, he recently failed to get out of a qualifying group that also included world heavyweights such as Canada, Guatemala, and Haiti. The cases of Chivas and the Mexican national team indicate that Mexico is a country currently working to define what it means to be Mexican.

Halfway across the globe, Qatar’s oil wealth has, for years, allowed its clubs to bring in talented foreign players (admittedly, slightly past the peaks of their careers). Gabriel Batistuta, Frank Leboeuf, Jay-Jay Okocha, and Romario have all spent at least some time in the Q-League. Despite these big names playing in the domestic league, the Qatari national team has achieved very little.

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What LA-based journalists Luis Bueno and Andrea Canales uncovered about Jesus Padilla was not that big a deal. Their reporting showed that Padilla, a young forward for Chivas of Mexico, was born in San Jose, Calffornia, not San Miguel de Alto in the Mexican state of Jalisco, as stated on the club’s website. This is only an issue because of Chivas’ policy of only fielding Mexican players. This policy, writes Luis Bueno, was in fact “an unwritten law which dates back to the early 1940s, when then-club president Ignacio Lopez Hernandez wrote in a letter that the club would henceforth accept only ‘Mexicans born in Mexico’ and shut the door completely on foreign-born players.”

Jesus Padilla (photo: Mexsport/mediotiempo.com)

The revelation about Paddilla has forced Chivas to alter its long-held policy. The club says that it will now follow the definition of citizenship laid out in the Mexican constitution, which states that “those born in a foreign country of Mexican parents; of a Mexican father and a foreign mother; or of a Mexican mother and an unknown father.” On the face of it, this shift seems like a purely sporting matter. But it is not. In fact, definitions of Mexican identity are shifting in society as a whole, profoundly affected by the numbers of migrants leaving for the United States. The case of Jesus Padilla is simply one example of how Mexico as a whole is being forced by massive demographic shifts to change its notions of what it means to be Mexican.

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Following up on my interview with Andrea Canales a few weeks ago, my interview with her fellow LA reporter Luis Bueno is up now on This is American Soccer (TIAS). Luis writes for Sports Illustrated, MLSNet.com, the Press-Enterprise, in addition to running his Sideline Views blog along with Andrea. Most of my conversation with Luis focused on the role of Hispanics in American soccer. A few interesting quotes are below and if they tickle your fancy, cruise on over to TIAS and read the whole thing.

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