PICO RIVERA, Calif. – A sign atop the high-school stadium’s grandstands reads “Protect the Ranch.”
For four years at El Rancho High, that’s what current Sounders midfielder Cristian Roldan did; eschewing professional soccer academies to stay and lead “The Ranch” to local, regional and state soccer championships. His loyalty protected not only classmates who’d assembled their best team ever, but the ideals of a proud, soccer-loving community built largely via the immigrant path his parents had taken decades earlier.
Roldan’s father, Cesar, and mother, Ana, in 1982 each separately left civil-war ravaged Guatemala and El Salvador, respectively, to start over in the U.