“You knew it the second you crossed over into Tijuana – there was never any confusion about whether you were in the U.S. or in Mexico,” said Vazquez, now in a breakout year in Major League Soccer and the 2019 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. “My parents drove me to the border every morning and dropped me off. Then I’d walk across. Once I was in Mexico, I took an Uber to practice.”
Two Countries, Every Day
The longest waits were on the way back into the States. Vazquez laughs when describing the back-ups and long lines and how on some days, the sun would set and he’d still be in that limbo on his way back to his hometown near San Diego. “I learned about patience in those lines for sure,” he said. “But mostly what I took from it was the passion I had for the game. The passion to be at training on time and learn what was to be learned.”
He learned much during his time in and out of Tijuana. Vazquez turned from a thin kid into a 6-3, 175-pound goal-hunter who could hold off the most determined defender. In 2015, he made his first appearances for Tijuana in Mexico’s Copa MX (the country’s domestic cup) and he trained with he first team for the rest of that year. Still 16, it was an opportunity to learn even more from grown men and seasoned pros. It wasn’t long before then U.S. U-17 coach Richie Williams was calling.
“Training with the first team [Tijuana] helped me a lot with my confidence when the National Team calls started coming,” said Vazquez, now 20, who scored two goals for the U.S. at the 2015 U-17 World Cup in Chile, where he got his first taste of big passionate crowds like the ones he’s delighting now at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. “With the U-17s and U-20s, I’d just tell myself that I’m good enough to be training and playing with the first team at Tijuana, so I can handle this. I’m better than this – and I’d just go out and kill it.”
