One week after a fairytale win over the defending champion L.A. Galaxy in its first regular-season Main League Soccer match, San Diego FC will make its dwelling debut Saturday. Main the cost towards St. Louis Metropolis FC will likely be stalwart U. S. Males’s Nationwide Group midfielder and hometown hero Luca de la Torre.
De la Torre’s soccer story started in San Diego, the place he was born, however as a result of the town lacked a professional franchise for many of his profession, he has performed principally overseas.
As a teen, de la Torre moved to London to coach with Premier League facet Fulham. 4 years later, he hopped throughout the English Channel to the Netherlands to play for Eredivisie Heracles.
Two promising seasons there earned him a switch to Spain’s Celta de Vigo, and that membership — a small, hyper-local outfit within the distant northwestern area of Galicia — kick-started de la Torre’s improvement. He made 67 appearances for Celta de Vigo over three years, serving to it cement a spot within the Spanish desk after a sequence of relegation-threatened seasons.
Regardless of all his success in Europe, the decision of dwelling was sturdy for de la Torre, 26. When he heard about San Diego’s MLS mission, he was desperate to be part of it.
“It is a tremendous particular feeling to play at dwelling, one thing not quite a lot of guys get to do of their profession,” de la Torre said, per MLS.com. “I can not wait to get began.”
San Diego sporting director Tyler Heaps agrees.
“It is a scenario we expect works for us and for Luca,” he told Give Me Sport. “It simply means extra. You herald a child from San Diego, you understand he will give 110%.”
New franchises have a charmed historical past in MLS. St. Louis Metropolis SC, the newest crew earlier than San Diego to hitch the league, gained the Western Convention in its opening season. Austin and Nashville wanted simply two seasons to scale the heights of their conferences and make deep playoff runs. Their successes shared three key components: deep native connections, sturdy participant sourcing and at the least one standout athlete to push the crew in moments of doubt.
In de la Torre, San Diego has these qualities in a single participant.
De la Torre’s affect is predicted to increase far past the sector. He isn’t a everlasting San Diego signing — the midfielder arrived on a mortgage deal and can return to Galicia in December — so which means he can assist the crew develop after which unfold the phrase about how far MLS has come.
““There’s increasingly more curiosity in MLS from gamers in Europe,” he told MLSsoccer.com. “Numerous my teammates ask me about it on a regular basis, clearly about San Diego being such an important place to dwell in California. I feel that the league is simply going to develop. And once I come right here, and once I see the services and the workers and the professionalism and the funding, to be trustworthy, it is actually spectacular.”
De la Torre appeared stellar in San Diego’s 2-0 win over the Galaxy. He was the glue holding the midfield collectively, and his intelligent passing — coupled with standout performances from defensive midfielders Jeppe Tverskov and Anibal Godoy — saved the Galaxy from constructing momentum.
That type of possession-based play is tough to do effectively, however it might pay dividends in MLS. A number of groups, most notably 2009 Actual Salt Lake, have gained the MLS Cup doing that.
De la Torre likes his probabilities of delivering a win at dwelling within the crew’s second match within the league.
“That is going to be a extremely huge sport,” he said. “To win this sport is extra vital than profitable the primary sport. It is about constructing this sense of momentum right here.
“I consider — undoubtedly — that it is a crew that may do one thing particular.”
