TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – While El Salvador’s campaign in the 2022 Concacaf Men’s Under-20 Championship in Honduras came to an end on Sunday in their 5-4 Round of 16 defeat to the Dominican Republic, it was still a tournament to remember for El Salvador FW Javier Mariona.
The 17-year-old scored two goals in the tournament to help his team reach the knockout stage. It was made even more special by the fact that it was 52 years ago this summer that his grandfather, Salvador Mariona, captained El Salvador at the country’s first ever FIFA World Cup appearance at Mexico 1970.
Now, Mariona is following in his grandfather’s footsteps, representing the Blue and White on football’s biggest stages. Having that connection with his grandfather has meant the world to the young attacker.
“I think it’s amazing. It comes with a lot of prestige and a lot of value. The simple fact that he was able to reach that World Cup in 1970 being the captain, with that experience he had a lot of stories and a lot of messages as to how he grew as a player and a person,” said Mariona in an exclusive interview with Concacaf.com.
“I think having that has been a blessing for me and I use that as much as I can to my advantage as well as motivation. Since I was a toddler, I knew that my greatest goal was to play in a World Cup and knowing that my grandfather was already there gives me a boost,” added Mariona.
Mariona enjoyed a good tournament for the Cuscatlecos in Honduras, scoring his goals in just 49 minutes of play across four appearances. The two goals he scored in the 4-1 group stage win against Aruba is a feeling he’ll never forget.
“I have played a couple friendlies with the El Salvador senior team and I’ve scored a couple goals, but I think the simple fact that I was able to find the back of the net twice in a Concacaf game brought out an emotion that ran through my body. It’s incredible, it’s priceless. You really can’t put it into words,” said Mariona.
Watching El Salvador play at the CMU20 evoked a lot of memories of the Senior National Team’s quarterfinal run at the 2021 Concacaf Gold Cup, with an attacking style that was pleasing to the eye. There is no question that the ethos preached by Senior National Team Head Coach Hugo Perez has filtered down into the country’s Youth National Teams.
“I would say that a lot of the stuff we take is implemented from the senior team national team. We look at them and say these are the type of guys we want to be in the future in terms of playing style and in terms of the men that they are. We watch a lot of film on the senior national team. When we are training, we say, ‘This is the way they move and this is how we are going to copy it,’” said Mariona.
Mariona is also part of a new generation of El Salvador players who were born and raised in the United States, but represent the Central American country at the international level. While Mariona’s first steps into football may have been different than some of his El Salvador teammates, at the end of the day he knows that it is all about the shirt they all wear on the field together.
“The first time I came to El Salvador, I was very nervous, I didn’t know what to expect. My teammate, Alejandro Cano, our starting center back, he had been to El Salvador before one previous time. We flew from San Francisco to El Salvador and I was asking him questions the entire flight. I felt very anxious, very nervous…
“But at the end of the day, I like to think of it as that we all have the same blood, we are all from El Salvador, we are all there for a reason, we’re all ready to represent the Blue and White with all our heart and give our all. I just try to represent El Salvador to the best of my capability, give them by best and try to achieve as much as possible at an individual and collective level,” concluded Mariona.
