20673: Peguero gets a tryout in Major League Soccer (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: VISHNUSURF@aol.com


Haitian gets shot at Rapids
But violence back home preoccupies thoughts of young player at tryouts
By John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News
March 22, 2004
WESTMINSTER - On an emerald-green soccer field with a postcard view of the
Rocky Mountains, Jean Philippe "Pedro" Peguero trained Sunday with the Colorado
Rapids as part of a weeklong tryout.
On his second day in Colorado, the lean 22-year-old member of the Haitian
National Soccer Team was feeling good about his chances of catching on with the
Rapids.
But whether the Major League Soccer team offers him a contract is not as much
a concern these days as the situation back home.
"I was watching television," he said, recalling the events in the Caribbean
country earlier this month. "There was a fire at a gas station and somebody got
shot. That's terrible."
"It's hard when you see that," he added softly. "It hurts, you know? It
hurts."
In the lobby of the Rapids training center, the Port-au-Paix native sat
cross-legged in a chair, pulling at the top of his knee-high blue socks.
The events he described occurred in the days before Feb. 29, when Haitian
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled the country as rebel forces advanced on
Port-au-Prince, the capital.
Since then, a multinational force that includes about 1,800 U.S. troops has
tried to restore order for a new interim government.
But the violence in Haiti's volatile capital persists.
A U.S. military spokesman reported Sunday that Marines shot and wounded two
men who failed to stop at a checkpoint.
The shooting occurred late Saturday in Port-au-Prince's Pont Morin
neighborhood half an hour after a 10 p.m. curfew imposed by international peacekeepers,
Maj. Richard Crusan told The Associated Press.
Peguero has lived in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., with his parents and a sister
since 2000. He also has a 13-year-old brother who remains in Port-au-Paix,
staying with his godmother.
This week he is on vacation from his twice-a-day training with the Haitian
national team, which is based in Miami. He plays forward.
If the Rapids sign him, Peguero will be among a handful of Haitians playing
in Major League Soccer in the United States.
Peguero has been playing soccer since he was 7 years old. He last visited
Haiti with the national team in September.
There are many soccer clubs throughout his country, but the civil unrest has
made it difficult to play the game for now.
Peguero said what Haiti needs right now is "good government."
"Everybody needs freedom," he said. "No more trouble, no more fighting, no
more shooting."
The Rapids players also have seen the impact of political violence, albeit
from a distance.
The team was on the final leg of its 2004 preseason tour in Antequera, Spain,
earlier this month when terrorist train bombings rocked Madrid, 350 miles to
the north.
"The Colorado Rapids are deeply disturbed by the events that took place today
in the city of Madrid," Rapids General Manager Dan Counce said March 11 in a
prepared statement.
"Even though our club is physically far away from the site of the atrocities,
we can feel and share the pain of the Spanish people. We want to offer the
most sincere condolences to the victims of this tragedy."
The team returned to Colorado on March 18. They open their season in Dallas
on April 3.