LOS ANGELES, April 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Fox
Sports en Español announced today that El Sueño de Tu Vida presented by Sears,
the only national tour to scout top Hispanic soccer talent for pro clubs &
colleges, will be returning for its second year starting this month. The
national amateur scouting program is the result of Fox Sports en Español's
partnership with Alianza de Fútbol Hispano and Sears, through which America's
most talented amateur Hispanic players are given the opportunity to showcase
their skills and earn college scholarships as well as professional contracts in
Mexico and the U.S. El Sueño de Tu Vida
is the biggest grassroots program launched by a network across the nation's key
markets, and creates national media attention for sponsors at a local level.
"We're thrilled to continue our partnership
with the nation's leading organization dedicated to the development of amateur
Hispanic soccer," said David Sternberg, General Manager and Executive Vice
President for Fox Sports en Español. "Fox Sports en Español is committed
to providing an integrated platform to showcase the top Hispanic talent in the
country."
El Sueño de Tu Vida presented by Sears had
an extremely successful debut in 2008: 18 players from around the country
received formal tryout invitations from MLS and Mexican professional teams,
with four of the players eventually going on to sign professional
contracts. One of the players
discovered by El Sueño de Tu Vida scouts, Victor Sanchez of Chicago, is now a
member of the U-17 Mexican National team player pool after signing a contract
with Mexican Club Santos Laguna in November 2008. Most recently, two players from last year's El Sueño de Tu Vida
in Houston were signed to the U-17 team of Puebla F.C., one of the elite
Mexican club teams. The newly acquired
goalkeeper Luis Manuel Pedraza is playing alongside forward Juan Francisco
Sillero, who already scored 2 goals in his debut against Cruz-Azul U-17.
In 2009, the team of scouts will be
comprised of some of Mexico's most accomplished and influential talent
evaluators, including Jose Enrique Vaca (America), Jose Luis Ortega (Santos
Laguna), Daniel Ahmed (Atlas), and Jose Manuel Abundis (Toluca). As part of the scouting process in each
city, 18 players will be chosen to compete on the El Sueño de Tu Vida Local
All-Star Team, which will play a game against a visiting Mexican Primera
Division A or MLS reserve team during the third weekend of the events. Four players from each city's All Star team
will be further selected to a national player pool of 40 finalists, where only
18 players from the player pool will make the National All-Star Team, which
will play against America "Primera A" in Los Angeles in a nationally
televised game by Fox Sports en Español on October 24th.
In order to expand the scope and reach of
its professional and college scouting efforts in 2009, Alianza has added Copita
Alianza, a youth tournament to compliment the Verizon Wireless Copa Alianza,
and El Sueño de Tu Vida scouting program presented by Sears. The Copita Alianza
tournament, which will be played concurrently with the adult tournament,
together with the youth scouting program, will offer players 16 years of age
and younger an opportunity to be scouted by both professional teams and college
coaches, while providing professional talent evaluators access to an age group
young enough to be groomed and trained to become future impact players at the
professional level in Mexico or in the United States.
El Sueño de Tu Vida tryouts will be held
during the second of three weekends of Verizon Wireless Copa Alianza
tournaments in each of the following 10 markets:
El Sueño de Tu Vida 2009 Tryout Calendar
CITY DATE
CITY DATE
Phoenix, AZ April 18-19
Chicago, IL July 4-5
Houston, TX May 2-3
Denver, CO July 25-26
Dallas, TX May 16-17
Los Angeles, CA August 15-16
Atlanta, GA May 30-31 San
Francisco, CA August 29-30
New York, NY June 13-14 El
Paso, TX September 26-27
For further information please
visit
http://msn.foxsports.com/fse/sueno.
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About Fox Sports en Español
Reaching more than 14 million cable and
satellite households in the country, of which over 5 million are U.S. Hispanic
Households, Fox Sports en Español is the leader in Spanish-language sports
media. We feature premier soccer programming with exclusive coverage of the top
leagues and tournaments in Latin America and Europe; coverage of the Major
League Baseball regular season, All-Star Game, American League Championship
Series and World Series; championship boxing and UFC(R) and mixed-martial arts
across four compelling media platforms. With more than 1,600 hours of live and
exclusive programming, a robust web site brimming with streaming video,
portable content from FSE Móvil and the Fox Sports en Español Magazine, we are
and will continue to be the first name in the U.S. Hispanic sports space.
Fox Sports en Español is distributed by Fox
Cable Networks Group and operated by Fox Pan American Sports LLC, an
international sports programming and production entity jointly owned by HM
Capital Partners, LLC and News Corporation's (NYSE: NWS) Fox Sports
International. For more information, visit Fox Sports en Español online at
foxsportsla.msn.com.
About Alianza de Futbol Hispano
Founded in 2004, Alianza de Futbol Hispano is
the leading national organization dedicated to the support and development of
amateur Hispanic soccer in the United States. Through its sponsored local,
regional and national tournaments, the organization brings together and
showcases the talents of Hispanic amateur players nationwide. Alianza and its
corporate partners reach out to a growing community of hundreds of thousands of
Hispanic soccer players and their families. The 2008 edition of the Alianza
tournament had a total attendance of more than 115,000. For more information,
visit www.alianzadefutbol.com or call
1-866-538-4955.
SOURCE Fox Sports en
Español
