Former HB soccer player to go pro in Belgium

CARSON – As soon as he saw the roster, Sacha Kljestan’s heart broke. He wasn’t going to represent the United States in South Africa.

After all the hard work and minutes played starting seven games for the national team during World Cup qualifying, after helping the USA shock the world when it advanced to the Confederations Cup final in 2009, he was left out when it mattered most.

So it’s no wonder that the decision to leave him off the team hit him hard. He proved that he can be a dangerous attacking midfielder while playing for the United States, becoming the first player to open his national team career with a hat trick when he scored three goals against Sweden last year.

“Sure it is sad and disappointing to miss out, but I was told that when one door closes another one opens,” Kljestan said during a news conference at Home Depot Center on Monday. “Everything happens for a reason. Who knows? If I would have gone to the World Cup, maybe this move wouldn’t have happened.”

On Wednesday, the Huntington Beach High graduate will leave Chivas USA and the MLS to head to his new team, R.S.C. Anderlecht, Belgium’s most successful club which just won its 30^th domestic title and has a spot in the UEFA Champions League. He landed his new job in Brussels, he said, about a week after his national team snub.

It’s a career move he’s sure will shock a few of his old teammates from the Oilers boys soccer team even though he earned All-Sunset League honors after scoring 11 goals and adding 11 assists during his senior season.

 “I always thought I would do it (make it this far), but I don’t think anyone else at Huntington Beach thought I would. I was kind of small and skinny, and I sat on the bench when I was a sophomore. I didn’t start playing until I was a junior,” Kljestan said. “Everyone is still probably mind boggled to see that I have some kind of ability that I didn’t show in high school, and I was able to make it to this level.”

About a year and a half ago, Kljestsan said he talked with Anderlecht’s general manager, and the team wanted to put in a bid. But nothing came of it at the time. Still, the GM kept track of Kljestan’s career, saw that he scored five goals for Chivas USA in the last 10 games of the 2009 MLS season. This year, he’s got one goal three assists.

Forget all those stats and the fact that he had 13 assists in 2007 tying him for second in the MLS with the Galaxy’s Landon Donovan, what Anderlecht, Kljestan said, seems to like most about him is his mentality and fitness, how he can “run up and down the field the whole game.”

After talking with Anderlecht’s GM and coach during a recent trip to Belgium, he said he sees himself being more of a box-to-box midfielder, who will be expected to make runs off the ball as well.

The team’s training camp opened on Monday, but Anderlecht wanted to give its new player a week off because both Chivas and the United States national team have kept him going pretty much nonstop since January.  But he’s ready to get going. Since he got the job, he’s been reading up on his new team, and watching plenty of last season’s highlights, so he knows he’s got plenty of hard work to do in the next month or so.  

He doesn’t want to come off the bench as a sub. He wants to start right away.

“I am going to have to get in there and prove myself. I am going in there with my head down, and I am going to work super hard to get into the lineup,” he said. “I hope this will help me improve my chances of reaching the World Cup in 2014.”