INDIO — San Diego FC had but to play an MLS opponent when the group’s gamers filed onto one of many manicured fields on the Empire Polo Membership earlier this month to tackle New York Metropolis in a preseason exhibition. Recognizing one participant particularly, a small military of children rushed the white picket fence guarding the sphere and broke right into a chant that’s destined to turn out to be one of the vital common within the league this season.
“El Chucky Lozano!,” they known as rhythmically and in unison, repeating the cry that has adopted Lozano for the reason that opening recreation of the 2018 World Cup.
San Diego, an enlargement group that can swell the MLS to 30 golf equipment when it opens its first season in opposition to the reigning league champion Galaxy on Sunday at Dignity Well being Sports activities Park, might not have a regular-season win, a tradition or a historical past but. But it surely already has a star in Lozano, a 29-year-old Mexican ahead who has spent the final eight years in Europe.
“Chucky,” mentioned Tom Penn, the group’s chief govt officer “was our signature player.”
Penn has tried this earlier than. As president at LAFC, he made 29-year-old Mexican ahead Carlos Vela the signature participant for that group’s first season in 2018 and that labored out fairly effectively, with Vela breaking the MLS scoring report a 12 months later, then main the group to 2 appearances within the MLS Cup last.
Nonetheless Lozano didn’t come to San Diego to interrupt data — though that may be a pleasant bonus. What attracted him was town, the league and the membership’s ties to the Proper to Dream youth academy, a sequence of residential colleges and coaching facilities based in Ghana and now run in 4 international locations by San Diego FC co-owner Mohamed Mansour.
“The whole San Diego project, the Right to Dream, the club. All that caught my attention,” Lozano mentioned in Spanish. “That’s why I chose San Diego.”
Soccer followers look forward to San Diego FC’s Chucky Lozano to signal autographs.
(Ben Nichols / San Diego FC)
Making that mission succeed will likely be a problem however the group isn’t precisely drawing on a clean canvas. The Proper to Dream academies, which nurture younger gamers holistically in each soccer and training, have graduated some 260 college students, sending greater than 150 gamers to skilled golf equipment and greater than 65 to nationwide groups. And San Diego coach Mikey Vargas mentioned that success supplies a basis for his fledgling MLS group.
“We’re not starting everything from scratch because we already have a model,” mentioned Vargas, whose solely expertise managing on the senior stage was a two-game stint as interim coach of the U.S. nationwide group. “It’s how do we adapt it to make it unique and accessible and successful in MLS.
“I want pure alignment. Whether it’s a new project or an established one, pure alignment — coach to leadership, coach to players, coach to supporters. That kind of diamond is the most important thing.”
Vital as a result of, as an enlargement membership, San Diego has neither a tradition to outline it nor a historical past to fall again on. Vargas mentioned this 12 months’s group will likely be liable for constructing each.
“The club’s going to be here in 100 years. We’re not,” he mentioned. “So when the club is able to reach back, they’re going to reach back on what we do and what steps we take right now.
“That’s a massive responsibility. Because you don’t just affect your present, but you’re really going to affect the trajectory of the club 50, 100 years into the future.”
To do this, San Diego has assembled an eclectic roster of gamers from 14 international locations. Amongst them is U.S. World Cup veteran Luca de la Torre, former LAFC gamers Pablo Sisniega and Tomás Ángel, former English Premier League defender Paddy McNair and Proper to Dream graduate Ema Boateng, who spent three seasons with the Galaxy.
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San Diego FC’s Ema Boateng speaks on the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Proper to Dream’s latest facility in El Cajon, Calif.
“Being an expansion team, the good thing is there’s no blueprint for us,” mentioned Boateng, who has additionally performed for Columbus, D.C. United and New England, all unique MLS golf equipment. “We can mold it in our own way. We’re setting examples for future generations and we’re setting the bar for our fans.”
Like Lozano, Boateng was additionally drawn to San Diego by its connections to Proper to Dream. Boateng, who was born in Ghana and grew up in a home with out operating water or electrical energy, began his soccer journey on the academy when he was 12. He teared up whereas giving a transferring speech on the ribbon slicing for the Proper to Dream’s latest facility in El Cajon, Calif., the place the MLS group may also practice.
“I’m forever filled with gratitude when I think of Right to Dream,” he mentioned later. “At first it was basically a charity that helped me and gave me a chance. Now it’s an organization that I play for.”
“I’ve been on a lot of teams where the word family has been used,” he added. “This really feels like family. It’s an organization that gave me everything that I have now.”
It additionally looks like household to Lozano, whose first identify is Hirving, not Chucky. The nickname was held on him by gamers in Pachuca’s youth system who thought that Lozano, then 11, resembled the evil red-headed Chucky doll from the “Child’s Play” sequence of horror movies.
And Lozano embraced it, hiding beneath beds to frighten teammates. Now he’s embracing his position because the signature participant on an MLS enlargement franchise — which is why he lingered lengthy after that first recreation to circle the sphere signing numerous autographs and posing for pictures with the children who welcomed him by chanting his identify.
“The complete San Diego project, everything that is around San Diego, the city, the people, being part of that caught my attention,” he mentioned.
Lozano hopes the remainder of MLS will quickly be listening to San Diego as effectively.
