By Thuc Nhi Nguyen
Amanda Perez’s legs trembled as she walked across the pitch in Trinidad and Tobago. Goosebumps crept up under her Mexican national soccer team jersey, her name printed in neat letters across the back. As the Mexican national anthem rumbled out of the speakers, the San Mateo, Calif., native swelled with excitement and nervousness.
This was the World Cup.
Perez, a 20-year-old redshirt sophomore for the University of Washington women’s soccer team, has four years of international experience with the Mexican national team, having played in the U17 and U20 World Cups already. Even though she has aged out of the U20 program, Perez still has eyes toward suiting up for her country again on the biggest international stage, this time for the senior team. The 5-foot-6 midfielder is determined to make it happen.
“I know that that’s going to be really difficult but there’s nothing in my mind that tells me that I can’t do it,” Perez said. “I’m going to do it. I don’t know if it’s going to take me a long time, but it’s going to happen.”
Perez has already watched it happen for her older sister, Veronica, an attacking midfielder for the Mexican national team. Veronica, a UW alumna currently with the National Women’s Soccer League’s Washington Spirit, first got involved with the Mexican national team about five years ago.
After she returned home from training camp, Veronica sat around the family’s kitchen table in San Mateo and recounted stories of her experience: the language, the culture, the practice sessions.
Then 15, Perez was convinced she wanted the same life.
For much of Perez’s soccer life, she has been following Veronica’s footsteps. She tagged along to Veronica’s games, cheering alongside their father, who was born to Mexican immigrants in Redwood City, Calif. Together, the soccer-crazed family played soccer in the front yard in the mornings. Those mornings, playing goalkeeper for Veronica, are some of Perez’s favorite soccer memories.
Now, the two have developed into different players. Perez is a crafty distributor with a knack for finding her teammates in stride for goals. When Veronica was at the UW, her teammates called her “V Magic” for her penchant for scoring goals and escaping from a groups of defenders.
When they play together, though, the chemistry is undeniable, Veronica says. When they play against each other, Perez, who is four inches taller than her sister, tries to outmuscle Veronica, the elder Perez said.
“But I still run the show on the soccer field,” Veronica said.
Despite physical battles on the field, Perez said her older sister is her role model.
Said Washington women’s soccer head coach Lesle Gallimore: “From Amanda’s standpoint, she just worships the ground Veronica walks on.”
Now that Perez has aged out of the U20 program, she’s getting the chance to walk right next to her sister on the full national team.
This past March, Perez made her debut on the senior Mexican national team, when she came off the bench at the Algarve Cup in Portugal as a defensive midfielder. Veronica played attacking midfielder, and they became the first pair of sisters to suit up for the Mexican national team.
It was a moment Perez had thought about since she first got involved with the national team, and it didn’t disappoint.
“I can’t even begin to describe how amazing I felt at that moment,” Perez said. “Just looking at her, going like ‘Wow, look at what we accomplished.’ You can’t even put it into words, just take a deep breath and let it all in.”
While the Algarve Cup was a start, Perez hopes to play on a bigger stage with her sister one day: the Women’s World Cup. She started with the national team when she played in the 2010 U17 Women’s World Cup in Trinidad and Tobago and has played in the past two U20 Women’s World Cups.
In this past summer’s U20 World Cup, Perez, who is eligible for Mexican citizenship through her mother who was born in Ciudad Juárez, México, started two of three games and took up a new role as a veteran voice for the team, one that Veronica saw her little sister embrace fully.
“I think it helped her speak out more and kind of lead her peers,” Veronica said. “She’s really good at that anyway, she likes to talk a lot, she’s pretty vocal, she liked to voice her opinion so I think she does well in that environment.”
Veronica wore the No. 17 shirt while with the Huskies from 2006-09, and now Perez does the same. However, Veronica won’t give up the number when they play together. At the Algarve Cup, Perez’s green jersey had a white No. 16 on the chest. But whatever number, Perez didn’t mind because that senior national team jersey was hers.
“The first time I saw it, I couldn’t even believe it was happening,” Perez said of her jersey. “You think of all the hard work you’ve put in and all the extra time you’ve put in for practices and club and extra time with your sister and your friends, and all this for something. It’s finally paying off and to represent your country is the biggest honor for me.”
