Welcome to the Scuff Podcast where we talk about US Soccer. Our guest today is the head coach of the El Salvador Men's National Team.

He's a former U.S. International who played at the 1994 World Cup and a former U.S. Youth National

Team coach who helped develop players such as Christian Pulisic, Tyler Adams, Westin

McKinney, he played professionally in Southern California, France, Sweden, and Saudi Arabia, among other places.

He has for years been a mainstay of the Northern California soccer scene.

Hugo Perez, thanks for joining us.

Hey, thanks for having me.

Great talking to you guys right now.

Let me start now with a question,

but by reading something submitted by a listener of ours. His name is Jorge, he's in the Bay Area. He said,

I was a little kid when my dad, a native of San Salvador, took me to the round of 16 game

versus Brazil on July 4th 1994.

I hardly remember the game but I remember it was 100 degrees

at Stanford Stadium and my dad pointed to number 7

and told me in Spanish, That guy is Ugo Perez also from El Salvador

came over here as a kid and now plays for the US. I remember the goal from

Be Beto that won the game but more than anything that moment seeing a

Salvadorian American playing for the USA I was hooked from that moment to this day I just

thought I should read you that that's great great. And I want to ask you, what do you remember about that game?

I think it was the most important game in the history for me personally.

Football. history for me personally of football in the United States. The reason was because in the previous World Cups that we had intervened when I qualified, I don't remember basically

the 1950s, that was the last time before we came in in 1990, that we had gone to the second

...