Hero Update: Jose Torres

So I told you about Jose F. Torres, the Mexican-American soccer player who plays professionally in Mexico but decided to represent the US nationally.  Well tonight’s the big US-Mexico game and JFT will be wearing the USA colors.  If you don’t know, in international soccer you can only ever play for one country, so if you’re from a mixed heritage like JFT that means making a big decision.  JFT plays for one of the poudest and most successful Mexican teams, so chosing to represent Mexico’s biggest rival is a big deal.  Basically, it took balls to do this.  He may well be hated by his home fans.  I would make a comparison with some other sport but honestly, there just isn’t another sport where this matters this much.  Perhaps, I could point out that weak-ass steroid user A-Rod was such a big pansy and didn’t want to offend Yankee fans (or his corperate sponsors/owners) that he didn’t represent his native nation (which he claimed to love but then again he claimed not to use steroids or sleep with Madonna also so who knows?) and instead represented the US in the World Baseball Classic.  Of course unlike the WBC, people actually care about international soccer so that’s a lame comparison.

In the end, JFT is one courageous guy.  A guy willing to risk his career to represent his country.