A few miles south of where the film “Napoleon Dynamite” was filmed is Smithfield, amid towering white silos and tall grasses glistening in sunlight. It is here where Sergio Flores first learned to play soccer. With his father and older brother Zachary as his influences, the RSL rookie says he gained a deep appreciation for how the game is played.
Today Flores, the only Utahn on the team is a shoo-in to make the Real reserves, as well as a decent chance at the 18-man first-team. His route to MLS has been somewhat circuitous-also the case for other MLSers. But the real story is how he returned home.
The opening act
Flores’ start in soccer wasn’t unlike other kids, playing in a recreation league at age five. The difference was that he his older brother Zachary learned how to play the game from their father, an ex-soccer player from Bolivia. Years earlier, their father, Willy, met Sergio’s mother Chris, a native Kentuckian at Utah State, later settling in Cache valley.
Not unlike other parents whose kids’ best interests are at heart, the family of six (including two sisters) made sacrifices, he said.
“If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t be where I am today,” he said.
By age 10, the Flores clan traveled regularly to Layton, more than 40 miles away, to watch Sergio and his brother play and for an AAA-level club team that their dad coached. Sergio played forward, Zachary midfield. That’s how it’s always been, the RSL rookie said.
Flores turned his talents further south by age 14, playing for Sparta, a Salt Lake City-based club. It was there, he said, that he first tasted big-time soccer.
“It was good for my game,” he said. “The club was a big name.”
There were tournaments in San Diego and Tampa, exotic sunny locales different from cold Cache Valley. His team even went to France in 1998, finishing sixth in a tournament. “We got a lot of exposure,” he said. “I’m sure it helped me a lot.” The next year, in 1999, as a 15-year-old sophomore at Sky View, Flores left the sleepy northern Utah town and moved with Zachary to Argentina.
Both played for the Club Atletico Chacarita Juniors reserve team. Flores says his biggest soccer lessons came once they arrived there. He says he also tasted the “soccer-crazy” mentality as a world traveler on the U.S. Under-15 and Under-17 national teams, also meeting RSL head coach John Ellinger, then the head of the U-17s.
Chalk talk
For Flores, his first days in the South American country were eye-opening, in terms of what soccer was like in America and what the Argentines believed.
“People were literally killing themselves to get to the next level there,” he said. “It was a great experience, just soccer night-and-day.”
Wide-eyed but eager to learn, Sergio embarked on his mission to play on the first-team. His daily regimen: Stepping up his game to that of the locals used to the soccer-crazy environs. He and his brother went through two-a-day practices, with a schedule consisting of an 11 v. 11 scrimmage in the early morning hours, followed by more practice.
After lunch, the Flores brothers would watch a game on TV, analyzing every part of the match. Following that, the two would rest until 4 p.m. Then they would train until dusk before hitting their pillows.
“Argentina taught me a lot about sacrifices,” he said. “It taught me a lot about what I should do [to develop].” Flores played in Argentina for two years for Chacarita Juniors before transferring to Le Tigre, a Bolivian first-division club.
Real soccer missionary
Back in America, MLS had begun to develop after a few belches. Both Florida franchises folded, but eight remained, spread across the vast country. The Utah Blitzz of the USL, a minor league compared to MLS, proved that not only could a professional soccer team survive here, but thrive in a predominant LDS community backed by returned missionaries who were themselves world travelers like Flores.
In late summer of 2004, when Flores was in La Paz, Bolivia, playing for Le Tigre, he checked his e-mail and found a note from his mother: Salt Lake City would have an MLS team. Later Ellinger was announced as Real Salt Lake’s new coach. By December, Flores was given his release from Le Tigre and on his way back to Utah.
“I was so happy to be returning home to my mom’s cooking,” he said, not unlike other athletes forced to live far from home. It was like a dream come true.
Falling into place
Just like things fell into place for Flores’ mother and father when the two met at Utah State, so too did Sergio’s luck. For Flores, the choice to play again for Ellinger was easy.
“He’s a great coach,” he said. “He tells it how it is, but he’s a nice guy off the field.”
Another switch for Flores, he says, is that the longtime forward is now at right defense. For a soccer player, that’s like moving from Utah to Argentina, but Flores is used to that kind of adjustment. Flores has received rave reviews from Ellinger for his transition to the back, but Flores says he’s willing to play any position.
“I’m willing to play wherever the coach wants,” he said. While the steps in Sergio’s life may have been steep-from tiny Smithfield to Salt Lake City to Argentina to Bolivia to the biggest stage in the U.S., Flores is proof positive for those who dare dream of bigger, better things.
“Right now our goal is to make the playoffs and win [the] MLS Cup,” he said. “We have great players. The first games, we didn’t really know each other. Now we’re definitely a team.”