El Paso natives Ricardo Pepi and Alex Zendejas officially selected for the World Cup<\/a><\/p>\n“We thank God, because it was a dream that he had in his heart,” she said.<\/p>\n
She recalls Alex’s passion for sports beginning at a young age.<\/p>\n
“He started playing soccer when he was 5 years old. He always loved sports,” she said.<\/p>\n
At just 13 years old, Alex left home for Dallas to pursue his dream of becoming a professional soccer player. <\/p>\n
That decision would eventually lead him through the FC Dallas system and on to a successful professional career in Mexico, where he has become one of Club Am\u00e9rica’s top players.<\/p>\n
This season, Zendejas recorded 12 goals and seven assists in 33 appearances for Club Am\u00e9rica, helping earn his place on the U.S. World Cup squad.<\/p>\n
As the tournament approaches, Monica says it’s difficult to imagine the emotions she will feel when she sees her son walk onto the field wearing the United States jersey.<\/p>\n
“I don’t know, I can’t imagine what I’ll feel when we see him walk out on the field with the USA uniform,” she said.<\/p>\n
She credits her son’s work ethic and dedication for helping him reach the sport’s highest level.<\/p>\n
“Alejandro is very disciplined. He loves what he does. He gets out on the field and loves what he does,” she said.<\/p>\n
Beyond her family’s pride, Monica says the moment is significant for the entire Borderland region.<\/p>\n
“We are very happy as a community that two players from El Paso and Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez will play at the World Cup,” she said.<\/p>\n
She hopes Zendejas’ journey inspires the next generation of young athletes.<\/p>\n
“There are many kids here in El Paso who can work for their dreams to play soccer,” she said.<\/p>\n
Now, like many soccer fans across the Borderland, Monica and her family are preparing to cheer on Alex as he takes part in the biggest tournament in the world.<\/p>\n
“We are ready to cheer him on and live this moment,” she said.<\/p>\n
Sign up<\/a> to receive the top interesting stories from in and around our community once daily in your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14\/CBS4) \u2014 The mother of Alejandro “Alex” Zendejas, one of the two El Pasoans who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-331015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}