There are fewer worries for the family these days.

When Eduardo visited Vancouver in the pre-season to help Omar to get settled, he got lost in Richmond and his phone didn’t work.

A police officer helped him out. He let Eduardo use his phone to call Omar and had Eduardo tail him part of the way until he had his bearings.

That was a sign Omar was in a good place.

And when Eduardo told the cop that Omar practised near Hastings Street, the officer also offered up a warning.

“That’s a dangerous place,” the cop told him.

“Why?,” Eduardo asked. “It’s a lot of killing?”

“No, no,” said the cop. “It’s just not the best place in Vancouver.”

“I come from Juarez, the most dangerous place in the whole world,” Eduardo explained.

“I told my wife, even the part that’s not the nicest place in Vancouver, that would easily be the nicest place in Juarez,” says Eduardo, who raised his family — Omar has a younger brother and sister — across the border from Juarez in El Paso, Texas.

“Everything in Vancouver in beautiful. I was in love with the city.”

Eduardo swells with pride when talking about Omar’s first steps into professional soccer.

It was a dream Eduardo once held, but his dad instead sent him off to the University of New Mexico to get an education.

Eduardo hasn’t been as quick to stifle Omar’s soccer ambitions in the name of schooling.

“When he was a little boy, we used to play soccer in our backyard until one o’clock in the morning,” said Eduardo. “Our neighbour would come out and yell, ‘Go to bed! He has to go to school tomorrow!’

“I noticed a long time ago how determined Omar was to be a soccer player; so determined that I cannot tell him not to do it.”

He was the dad who crammed nine boys into a van and paid their expenses so El Paso could have their best team at tournaments, not simply a team of players who could afford to compete.

It’s taken a lot of time, and a lot of money, to get to this point, so Eduardo is enjoying it as much as his son.

He plans to take in five Whitecaps games that are within 700 miles of El Paso — two in L.A., and one in Denver, Salt Lake City and Dallas.

Eduardo drove 10 hours to see the Houston game. The message he delivered to his son was the same one he’s been repeating for a while.

Certainly since Vancouver drafted Omar first overall in the MLS SuperDraft in January. And then when the Daily Mirror in England reported that Premier League club Arsenal was “keeping tabs” on the young, 6-foot-4 striker with a gifted left foot.

“I tell him, ‘You’re just like any other kid, you haven’t done anything yet, my friend,’” says Eduardo.

“Right now, he has to make sure he helps his team be No. 1 in North America. Good things will come after that.

“I feel very comfortable with his team, his coaches, his teammates. I think it’s the best environment Omar could have to develop himself.

“My job is to make sure he keeps his feet on the ground.”

mweber@theprovince.com

twitter.com/ProvinceWeber

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Chivas USA (0-2-2) at Whitecaps (1-2-2)

Sat., 4 p.m., Empire Field

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