- Perez played in both the 1984 and 1988 Summer Olympics and the 1990 FIFA World Cup with the U.S
- El Salvador will face Canada, Honduras and Haiti in Group B
- El Salvador hasn’t qualified for the Olympics since 1968
MIAMI, Florida – In their history, El Salvador have only qualified for one Summer Olympics at Mexico City 1968, but now there is a new group of El Salvador players hoping to take that next step and punch their ticket to this summer’s Olympics in Tokyo at next month’s 2020 Concacaf Men’s Olympic Qualifying Championship in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Fortunately for El Salvador, they are in good hands. Leading the way is new Under-23 Head Coach Hugo Perez, who was born in El Salvador but played at the international level with the United States. Earlier this year, Perez began working with El Salvador’s Olympic aspirants and is pleased with the progress made, despite the short window of time before arriving to Mexico.
“We’ve been preparing the last three weeks. It’s very important for us because we don’t have a lot of time to prepare. So far, it’s been good, we’ve been lucky enough to have the players since their season just started [in El Salvador], they went back to their teams and we get them back next week,” said Perez in an exclusive interview with Concacaf.com. “It’s been good, still a lot of work to do for what we want to do, but hopefully we can get to Guadalajara in a way in which we can compete,” added Perez.
Perez’s pedigree as a coach and player is beyond reproach, having played in both the 1984 and 1988 Summer Olympics and the 1990 FIFA World Cup with the U.S. As a coach, he spent many years in the U.S. college soccer ranks before coaching with various U.S. youth national teams. As someone who has competed at the highest level, Perez is using his experience to help best prepare his team.
At next month’s 2020 CMOQ, El Salvador will face Canada, Honduras and Haiti in Group B. Suffice to say, each opponent poses their own unique challenges.
“There are no easy opponents and when we get there, we’ll know where we’re at as a team. Canada is on the rise, Honduras has been competing at a high level and Haiti has a lot of their players play in Europe. It will be an interesting tournament in that both groups are very good and we’ll see how we match with the teams in our group,” said Perez.
While Perez has spent just a few weeks with his players, he found a group motivated to make history and deliver El Salvador their first Olympics in 53 years.
“I like most their commitment to work the past three weeks. They want to change something that hasn’t happened for a lot of years. El Salvador hasn’t qualified for the Olympics for a long time, since 1968. So right there that is something that the players want to accomplish. There is always an opportunity to change history when you get in these kinds of tournaments,” said Perez.
A berth in this summer’s Olympics in Tokyo would not only do wonders for this generation of El Salvador players, but Perez feels like it would lift up the country as a whole.
“It would mean a lot to qualify. The country has gone through a lot of issues in last 30-35 years and people want things to change. Through soccer, you can bring happiness. I think we are desperate for that and hopefully these players can do that and give some happiness to our country,” said Perez.
