"I think she's the best midfielder in the country at her age level," Stanford coach Paul Ratcliffe said. "She sees spaces between defenders - things you shouldn't see at her age. She's way advanced. We have to look for recruits around the country, but here's a great one across the street."
Teresa was born in Mexico City but was 3 when the family moved to the Bay Area. Before the move, she watched her dad play in an alumni soccer game at Monterrey.
"She stood on the sidelines with her hands behind her back like a coach," Pedro said. "She watched the whole game. She was captured by it."
From the moment she started playing, at age 6 on a team called the Purple Penguins, she was a level or three ahead of everybody else. At age 7, her dad said, "she started playing with the ball at her feet and looking up."
Around that time, she started watching World Cup soccer on TV in blue-eyed amazement. These days, she loves to watch European men's games, looking for moves she might apply to her game.
She trains for soccer year-round, pushing herself between seasons in soccer-specific fitness drills with her father and yoga exercises with her mother.
