Scan the roster of Guatemala’s U-20 national team and one name stands out: Dor Yasur. Next to Carlos Reyes, Ricardo Sandoval, and Rafael Morales, Dor Yasur sticks out a bit.When I first saw the roster, I knew there had to be an interesting story of how a player named Dor Yasur came to represent Guatemala. And I was correct. I tracked down Yasur and it turns out that he is a freshman at American University in Washington, not far from where I live.

Washington is the latest stop on Yasur’s soccer journey, which has been filled with interesting stops. He was gracious enough to sit down with me for an hour-long interview recently, and his story was worth every minute.

Dor Yasur showing off his skills

Dor Yasur is the first generation of his family to be born in Guatemala. His family is from Israel and his father worked for his country’s embassies around the world. It was while the Yasur family was in the Central American country that Dor was born (and this would ultimately make him eligible for that country’s national team).

Yasur lived the first twelve years of his life in Guatemala City and it was there that he first started playing soccer. He formed a team with Guatemalan friends called “Bad Boys” (in English) and later played for the team at his school.

At age 12, Yasur’s life took a major turn when his family decided to move to Boca Raton, Florida. By that time, Yasur had already been bitten by the soccer bug. In Florida, he joined local club teams and played on them until high school.

Most precocious athletes attend high schools with strong sports programs, but Yasur chose to attend a school in line with his faith. Donna Klein Academy, which Yasur describes as a “tiny Jewish [high] school” (it had 84 students when he was there), had just begun its soccer program. Yasur quickly became a star on the team, which he actually began playing on in eighth grade.

Said Donna Klein athletic director David Trell of Yasur:

[He] just dominated. We really didn’t know how we were going to play and what our situation was because we never had a program and he just took over. He had seven goals in one game. He had four in another. He finished with well over 20 goals last season. We finished 8 and 4 last year and I think the four losses we had were because he didn’t play.

Dor Yasur in his high school days

Yasur dedicated himself to soccer. In addition to regular practices and games, he worked with personal trainer Luis Gajardo five days a week from 7:30 AM to 10:00 AM. He later joined the Palm Beach Pumas, a U-23 team dedicated to helping high school players get scholarships with college soccer programs. Yasur says that Gajardo and his Palm Beach Pumas coach, Bobby Lennon, are “the major reasons” he has been able to keep playing after high school. He also credits his family for his success. “My family has really been there for me since the beginning.”

Yasur’s hard work paid off when he was given a scholarship to attend American University in Washington, DC. In the beginning, Yasur found the step-up to college ball a challenge. “I was god-awful the first few months,” he says. “I didn’t think I was going to see the field.”

But with characteristic tenacity, Yasur improved and when given a shot by coach Todd West, Yasur grabbed it with both hands. He played well and became a starter, playing 13 games in all. Yasur’s success at AU provided the springboard that would bring Yasur’s career full-circle.

Dor Yasur in his official American University soccer team photo

Just after the college season had finished, the Guatemalan under-20 national team was on a tour of the US in preparation for the upcoming World Cup qualifying tournament. After a friendly, Yasur’s former personal trainer, Luis Gajardo (who is also an assistant coach at Florida Atlantic University), was talking with Guatemala’s coach, Rodrigo Kenton.The Guatemalan boss mentioned that his team was missing a few pieces and said to Gajardo, “Do you know of any defenders?” Gajardo immediately thought of Yasur and urged Kenton to give him a shot. Kenton said, “OK, bring him down for a tryout.”

So eager was Yasur to take advantage of this opportunity that he flew from Washington to Florida the next day to meet up with the Guatemalan U-20s. Yasur participated in several training sessions and made his debut with the team in a friendly soon after.

(Amazingly, the Guatemalan team was originally planning to stay only three days in the United States, but a donor gave them money to stay longer. Had the team left after three days, Yasur never would have had the chance to meet up with them in Florida.)

Yasur says there were several differences between college soccer and the international game. The main difference was the emphasis on organization. “We worked on our defensive shape hours upon hours upon hours.” The Guatemalan team also focused on set pieces, knowing they might be the opportunity to score the winning goal in a tightly contested international match. And whereas Yasur describes college soccer as being fairly direct, he says his Guatemalan teammates were “some of the most skillful guys I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Yasur then returned to school at American University. A couple of weeks later, another piece of good news arrived, again through his former personal trainer. Gajardo called Yasur to let him know that he had made such a good impression on Rodrigo Kenton that the coach was inviting him to the training camp for the U-20 qualifying tournament. Soon after, Yasur got a call from a Guatemalan reporter who asked him: “Do you know you’ve been selected for the Guatemalan U-20 team?” Yasur responded excitedly, “Yeah, I know!”

Three days later, Yasur was again flying out of Washington, this time to Guatemala. There, he met up with his teammates and began training for the tournament. As he got to know his teammates better, their differences became apparent. “Some of them knew what being Jewish was, but some of them had no idea.”

Recognizing this, coach Kenton made clear to all of his players that Yasur was a part of the team, just like everyone else. Even though he had spent less time with the Guatemalan U-20s and had a very different background than most of his teammates, Kenton told his players that Yasur was there to help the team achieve their common goal: to qualify for the U-20 World Cup.

Sadly, that goal was not achieved. Despite having one of their most talented youth sides ever and a well-respected coach (Kenton had gone to the World Cup twice as assistant coach for Costa Rica in 1990 and Nigeria in 1998), the Guatemalans came up short. They tied host team Panama in an atmosphere that Yasur described as “nuts” and, to the surprise of many, drew with the heavily favored Americans as well. In the last game, the Guatemalans had to beat Haiti, but the Caribbean team came out strong and won 2-0, ending the Central Americans’ dream.

Dor Yasur (#2) with his Guatemalan U-20 teammates

Though Yasur didn’t get to play in the qualifiers, he says he enjoyed the experience and is hungry for more. “I’d love to play for Guatemala again,” he says. Yasur’s time with the Guatemala U-20s is now over as he’s too old for the next World Cup cycle, but he holds out hope of making the Guatemalan Olympic team for the 2012 games.By 2012, Yasur could be achieving his goal of playing professionally. “I want to play until my legs give out,” he says. What country would he like to play professional in, I ask.

“I’d like to play in Israel for Maccabi Haifa or Maccabi Tel Aviv because a lot of my family is there. I feel a connection to Israel still, being Jewish and going through Jewish school.” He reaches into his shirt and pulls out a necklace. On it are two pendants: a soccer ball and a Star of David.

I ask: Do you feel more Guatemalan? Israeli? American?

“That is such a hard question,” responds Yasur. “If I go to Guatemala, I’m not the Guatemalan. When I’m here in America, I’m not the American; I’m the Guatemalan or Israeli. In Israel, I’m the americano or the Guatemalan.”

Ultimately, though, Yasur says he feels the strongest connection to Guatemala and Israel (though not to the United States, a country of which he’s not a citizen).

Yasur’s career, indeed his life, has taken some fascinating turns. He is an Israeli born in Guatemala who later moved to Florida, then to Washington DC, and who now represents the country of his birth.

When I suggest that parts of his career have been due to chance, he is quick to correct me.

“It’s chance, but it’s chance and hard work. I can’t even tell you to countless hours I’ve spent training.” He then recalls a quote told to him while with the Guatemalan U-20s.

“Luck,” says Dor Yasur, “is when destiny and hard work meet.”

Benny Feilhaber (left) playing for the USA U-20 national team

When American midfielder Benny Feilhaber signed for Hamburg in 2005, he returned to the part of the world his grandfather had left over half a century ago. But Feilhaber’s trip from UCLA to Germany was only the latest voyage in a life filled with twists and turns.Benny Feilhaber was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1985. His Jewish grandfather had fled to Brazil from his native Austria in order to escape the encroaching Nazi regime (though the Jewish population of Brazil is not as large as in Argentina, there are an estimated 100,000 Jews there today).Two generations later, young Benny grew up playing soccer in the streets of Brazil. He described the game there as “the most carefree soccer in the whole world. You kind of just play, do what you want with the ball and if you lose it and you just try and get it back.” Feilhaber played futebol in Brazil until, at age six, his family moved to the United States.

In Southern California, Feilhaber was a stand-out on local youth teams. He had a standout career at Northwood High School, but not enough to earn a scholarship to college soccer power UCLA. Feilhaber decided to try his luck as a walk-on at the Los Angeles school and earned a spot on the team. He experienced some success at UCLA, including being named to the Pac-10 second team, but his big break would come when he was named to the U-20 team for the 2005 World Championships.

Feilhaber’s inclusion on the U-20 team was a surprise because while he was successful at UCLA, he had never played for a youth national team. Good luck graced the player, as he told Andrea Canales of Soccer365:

I think the most surprising fact was how [then U-20 coach] Sigi (Schmid) heard about me to bring me in to the national team. His son attends UCLA and knows all the soccer guys. He told him I had been playing well and so Sigi decided to watch some games toward the end of my sophomore year.

Feilhaber’s play at the 2005 World Championships proved that his inclusion in the squad was deserved. He played so well that he was FIFA waxed poetic about his “silky skills and bags of creative energy” and named him to the all-tournament team, along with Leonel Messi, Philippe Senderos, and Jon Obi Mikel.

Feilhaber left such an impression at the tournament that he received offers from Mallorca, Heerenveen, and Kaiserlauten as well as Hamburg, with whom he eventually signed. The fact that Feilhaber had an Austrian passport smoothed his passage to Hamburg (with it, he wasn’t counted as a foreigner).

Feilhaber in his presentation for Hamburg

Feilhaber says he does see it as “a little bit ironic” that he now plays his soccer in the country which once forced his grandfather to flee his homeland (he is not the only Jew to return to Germany in recent years; see this Christian Science Monitor article about a “Jewish renaissance” in the country). And he says that most people in Germany “don’t [realize] I [am] Jewish, but if they asked I would be first to tell them.” Feilhaber identifies as Jew enough that he traveled to Israel with the American soccer team to take part in the 2005 Maccabiah Games. Doing so postponed his joining up with Hamburg, but Feilhaber says he doesn’t regret the decision. While there, he led the US team to a silver medal along with Chivas USA’s Jonathan Bornstein. (Bornstein, child of a Jewish father and Mexican mother described the tournament thusly: “Outside of my UCLA teammate Benny Feilhaber, I never really thought there were other high-class Jewish soccer players out there. With the Maccabiah Games, I definitely got the chance to experience a good thing. I realized there are a lot of really cool and really good Jewish athletes.”)

While Feilhaber began his Hamburg career with the reserves, this year he has seen extensive time with the first team. Playing along with world-class players such as Juan Pablo Sorí­n (also a Jew) and Rafael Van der Vaart (married to Dutch MTV presenter Sylvie Meis, who is Jewish) has improved Feilhaber’s play enormously.

Bob Bradley brought Feilhaber into the US squad this past week and gave him his first start in Sunday’s 3-1 victory over Ecuador. Feilhaber’s technique, passing, tackling, and stabilizing play were lauded by many. Said Landon Donovan (whose man of the match performance was due in no small part to the dirty work Feilhaber put in behind him), “He’s very good on the ball, and has as much potential at that position as anyone I’ve seen. He’s in a spot where he could find himself playing there for a long time for the US.”

One problem Feilhaber has is figuring out where “that position” is. While Feilhaber has played mostly as a defensive midfielder in recent years, he is far more skilled and creative than a typical “destroyer” in the mold of Claude Makelele. Some, like Paul Gardner, worry that Feilhaber’s “talent [may] wither away in the restricted world of the holding midfielder.”

But this view ignores the fact that a defensive midfielder need not only be a destroyer. In fact, Feilhaber resembles Italy’s deep-lying distributor Andrea Pirlo, a comparison both Feilhaber himself and Marc Connolly have made. Indeed, the US national team may have to reshape its tactics to match Feilhaber’s talents. (In this they could take a cue from the Argentines, who love a “number 5″ described by Marcela Mora y Araujo as “both marker and playmaker” who often pushes into an inside forward position too).

Feilhaber battles against Arsenal’s Julio Baptista in a 2006 Champions League match

Feilhaber’s unique skill set may stem, at least in part, from his eclectic upbringing. Landon Donovan says he has a “German bite” and Feilhaber agrees, saying he has “learned to be an aggressive ballwinner” in his time at Hamburg. But underneath he still retains some of what he learned on the streets of Brazil. The six years he spent in South America were important in teaching him “to keep the ball for my team and not to give it away easily.” Putting together this strength and technique has been key to his success. “Once I was able to use both these qualities in my soccer, it helped me become a much better player.”

Benny Feilhaber’s life has taken him to many continents, but he has never forgotten the country of his birth. He still speaks Portuguese, drinks matte (a Brazilian tea) every day, and told the website Even Is On that Brazilian music prominently placed on his iPod. And despite the success Feilhaber has achieved, he says that his dream is to play for the Brazilian club he supports, Botafogo.

Feilhaber is truly a man of the world. He makes a living in a country far from home, but claims the distance doesn’t bother him. “I’ve been really exposed to many different lifestyles so [playing in Germany] is definitely a new experience for me but nothing has been too unusual that I haven’t seen before.”

In recent years, Iran’s government has not given the world much reason to view it as a bastion of tolerance. The refrain “Death to America” filled the Persian air in the wake of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and continues to be uttered to this day. Anti-Semitism is common in political discourse, with President Ahmadinejad in 2006 calling [T]he Zionists and their protectors “the most detested people in all of humanity” and organizing a Holocaust denial conference.

But under the radar there is a story of an Iranian player whose treatment shows the tolerance for which Iran has, in various periods of its history, been known. That player’s name is Andranik Teymourian and, in the Muslim theocracy, he stands out as a Christian.

Andranik Teymourian

Surprisingly, Teymourian insists his religion has never been an issue. “I am very happy that as a Christian I am playing for a Muslim team,” he told the AP during last summer’s World Cup. Teymourian insists that religious issues don’t affect the players in Iran’s dressing room. “In terms of being a religious minority, I’ve got no problem, and relations are really good at the heart of the team.”

And the Iranian people are happy with Teymourian too. When he made his debut for the Iranian national team in 2005, people in that country were initially surprised to see him cross himself. But he has quickly won them over. Despite Iran’s lack of success at last summer’s World Cup, the image of Teymourian collapsed on the field after giving his all has endeared him to many in the country.

Teymourian collapes after Iran’s game against Angola

Teymourian is part of the Armenian minority group in Iran. Their numbers are currently estimated at some 200,000, with the majority living in Tehran and around Isfahan. Armenia and Iran were historically very close, but when their populations converted to Christianity and Islam respectively, the connections grew weaker. Despite this religious split, Armenians began coming to Iran in the 16th century. In the 20th century, Mohammad Reza Shah saw the Armenian population as a trusted source of support, and allowed the community to prosper under his rule. The Islamic Revolution of 1979, however, brought Islamic fundamentalists to power, leading many fearful Armenians to flee the country. Around 100,000 left during the rule of Ayatollah Khomeini. Surprisingly, Iran’s rulers today take a less repressive approach toward their Armenian minority. According to historian George A. Bournoutian,

The current government is more accommodating and Armenians, unlike the Kurds and Iranian Azeris, have their own schools, clubs, and maintain most of their churches. The fall of the Soviet Union, the common border with Armenia, and the Armeno-Iranian diplomatic and economic agreements have opened a new era for the Iranian Armenians.

Andranik Teymourian has shown himself to be a model of tolerance, even toward people still oppressed by the government of Iran. He has two Israel teammates at his club team, Bolton, and has become close friends with one of them, Idan Tal. Tal told Ynetnews in January of their burgeoning friendship:

We’re good friends off pitch as well. We talk a lot, sometimes we go out together. He told me a lot about Iran’s World Cup games. He’s living here alone, with no family, but he has a few Iranian friends who have lived in the area many years, and they were also very nice to me when I met them.

When Tal embraced Teymourian after he scored Bolton’s fourth goal in an FA Cup match against Doncaster Rovers in January, the image was reproduced on both Israeli and Iranian websites and lauded as a symbol of friendship trumping politics.

From L to R: Idan Tal, Andranik Teymourian, Kevin Davies, and Quinton Fortune

According to Tal, “it was just another victory hug.” And what did the Israeli say to the Iranian as they embraced? “We were laughing. We call him ‘Jesus’ on the team, a nickname the manager gave him when he let his hair grow long and he looked like Jesus, so I said ‘congratulations on the goal, Jesus.’”

What does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad think about one of the most detested members of humanity calling one of his countrymen Jesus? We’ll likely never know. But in their embrace and in their friendship, a Jew from Israel and an Armenian Christian from Iran are showing that cooperation on the soccer field can trump odious government policies.

Perhaps their friendship can be the beginning of what is right now unthinkable: reconciliation between Iran and the Jewish people. Indeed, within the country there are currently around 40,000 Jews, down from the 100,000 there at the time of the Islamic Revolution. Historically, Iran has been a place of freedom for Jews, who revere the ancient Persian king Cyrus the Great for liberating them from captivity and allowing them to return to Jerusalem.

We can only hope that the current anti-Semitic policies of Iran’s government are a historical blip and that future governments might follow the lead of Cyrus the Great, and not that of Mr. Ahmadinejad. Iran has made some progress on increasing tolerance of its Armenian Christian population; how long will it be until we have a government there that is courageous enough to make peace with Jews around the world, and the Jewish community in Iran itself. If such reconciliation were to occur, what better symbol of cooperation could there be than a player from Iran’s Jewish community representing the national team?