The "little fish" makes a splash; the Galaxy's Carlos Ruiz left the small pond of Guatemala and swam straight to the top of MLS - MLS Player Of The Year - Major League Soccer

Soccer Digest, Dec, 2002 by Ashley Jude Collie

THE SOCCER DIGEST MLS PLAYER OF the Year Award has typically been given to a savvy international veteran guiding a sea of green teammates. Players such as Carlos Valderrama, Preki, Marco Etcheverry, and Alex Pineda Chacon have performed with the aplomb and technique to stand out in our eyes as the best player in MLS. But in the year that American youth shone on the international stage at the World Cup, young stars had their way in MLS, too--and the brightest of them all was 23-year-old Guatemalan Carlos Ruiz.

The Los Angeles Galaxy striker took the league by storm in his first year in America, playing with a rare combination of passion, verve, and skill. Ruiz kicked off his scintillating season with extra-time game winners in his first two games. As the season progressed, he meshed with playmaking teammates such as Mauricio Cienfuegos and Cobi Jones, and Ruiz's killer smile grew wider as his goal-scoring exploits increased every week, bringing him attention from across the U.S. and beyond.

Ruiz left proven scorers such as Mamadou Diallo, Jason Kreis, Ante Razov, and Clint Mathis in his dust, recording 24 goals in 26 games to edge fellow first-year MLSer Taylor Twellman (23) of the New England Revolution for the league's goal-scoring title. Ruiz scored with both feet, on thunderous shots, on tap-ins from well-crafted setups, and on slick headers. In the process, he broke several MLS records, including the one for game-winning goals in a season (nine).

Ruiz scored many "big goals," as Galaxy coach Sigi Schmid calls them, to propel L.A. to the MLS Supporters Cup, given to the team with the best regular-season record. Ruiz dosed the season by tallying game-winners in each of the last two games--head-to-head encounters with L.A.'s bitter rivals, the San Jose Earthquakes, that clinched home-field advantage throughout the playoffs for the Galaxy. Plus, his timely goals propelled the Galaxy into the U.S. Open Cup final for the second consecutive year, as well as the MLS Cup final. Perhaps most impressive, Ruiz scored more than 50% of his team's regular-season goals (24 of 44).

All of this from a MLS Discovery Player whose soccer career began when he tried out as a 12-year-old for Guatemalan club CSD Municipal with three friends and only one pair of shoes between them. Even in those oversize boots, Ruiz showed enough promise to become the only one of the four offered a place by the club.

Now an international goal-scoring threat, El Pescadito ("The Little Fish") has foreign scouts increasingly checking in, even though he signed a long-term contract with MLS. He's also become the torchbearer for Guatemalan soccer and a superstar in his country. When he played in the MLS All-Star Game alongside two of his childhood heroes, Valderrama and Etcheverry, the Guatemalan media went crazy. The Pope was visiting the Central American nation at the time, and newspapers printed cover stories and photos of Ruiz alongside His Holiness.

"My country only has about 11 or 12 million citizens, and when I was there I played for its most popular team, so most people knew me very well," says Ruiz. "But after playing in MLS, they know me' even better. I went home recently, and everyone was stopping me in the street and congratulating me--they're very happy and proud of my achievements."

Ruiz came to MLS as a 22-year-old, but he wasn't inexperienced. He had already captained his country's U-23 team in Olympic qualifying and scored for the full national team against the U.S. in World Cup qualifying. But Guatemala didn't advance to Korea/Japan and didn't win a game at the 2002 Gold Cup, so Ruiz was still an unknown, if potentially exciting, commodity.

Galaxy coach Schmid saw something, however, in the young Guatemalan. "You always hope that a new player works out well, but it was still a big surprise when it did happen," says Schmid. "My expectations were for him to do well, but I didn't expect him to lead the league in scoring. He truly had an MVP season."

Schmid--who watched as heralded, foreign should-have-been stars such as Luis Hernandez, Ivan Polic, and Carlos Hermosillo crashed and burned with the Galaxy--was surprised how quickly and effortlessly Ruiz made the transition to a new league and country. "The thing that you can never be sure of is how a player is going to fit in with the team, how comfortable he is going to feel in a new city, and so forth," says Schmid. "That was probably the biggest surprise. Carlos felt very comfortable fight from the start. He accepted the group, and they accepted him. After games and practices, you could hear him shouting and jolting in the locker room, playing soccer tennis, just hanging with the guys. He hit it off better than I had hoped."

Fellow Galaxy striker Chris Albright, who regularly rooms with Ruiz on the road, calls him "quite the character." "Everyone's cool with Carlos. He's just a good guy and a joker," says Albright.

Ruiz grew up poor, playing soccer barefoot in the barrios of Guatemala City with makeshift balls made of rags. "We've been playing soccer in Guatemala that way for more than 100 years," says Ruiz. "The children begin playing when they're very young. I started when I was six, playing in the street. It's an obligation for the children to play. It's expected of them."