INDIO — San Diego FC had yet to play an MLS opponent when the team’s players filed onto one of the manicured fields at the Empire Polo Club earlier this month to take on New York City in a preseason exhibition. Spotting one player in particular, a small army of kids rushed the white picket fence guarding the field and broke into a chant that is destined to become one of the most popular in the league this season.
“El Chucky Lozano!,” they called rhythmically and in unison, repeating the cry that has followed Lozano since the opening game of the 2018 World Cup.
San Diego, an expansion team that will swell the MLS to 30 clubs when it opens its first season against the reigning league champion Galaxy on Sunday at Dignity Health Sports Park, may not have a regular-season win, a culture or a history yet. But it already has a star in Lozano, a 29-year-old Mexican forward who has spent the last eight years in Europe.
“Chucky,” said Tom Penn, the team’s chief executive officer “was our signature player.”
Penn has tried this before. As president at LAFC, he made 29-year-old Mexican forward Carlos Vela the signature player for that team’s first season in 2018 and that worked out pretty well, with Vela breaking the MLS scoring record a year later, then leading the team to two appearances in the MLS Cup final.
However Lozano didn’t come to San Diego to break records — although that would be a nice bonus. What attracted him was the city, the league and the club’s ties to the Right to Dream youth academy, a series of residential schools and training centers founded in Ghana and now run in four countries 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 said in Spanish. “That’s why I chose San Diego.”
Soccer fans wait for San Diego FC’s Chucky Lozano to sign autographs.
(Ben Nichols / San Diego FC)
Making that project succeed will be a challenge but the team isn’t exactly drawing on a blank canvas. The Right to Dream academies, which nurture young players holistically in both soccer and education, have graduated some 260 students, sending more than 150 players to professional clubs and more than 65 to national teams. And San Diego coach Mikey Vargas said that success provides a foundation for his fledgling MLS team.
“We’re not starting everything from scratch because we already have a model,” said Vargas, whose only experience managing on the senior level was a two-game stint as interim coach of the U.S. national team. “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.”
Important because, as an expansion club, San Diego has neither a culture to define it nor a history to fall back on. Vargas said this year’s team will be responsible for building both.
“The club’s going to be here in 100 years. We’re not,” he said. “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 that, San Diego has assembled an eclectic roster of players from 14 countries. Among them is U.S. World Cup veteran Luca de la Torre, former LAFC players Pablo Sisniega and Tomás Ángel, former English Premier League defender Paddy McNair and Right to Dream graduate Ema Boateng, who spent three seasons with the Galaxy.
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San Diego FC’s Ema Boateng speaks at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Right to Dream’s newest facility in El Cajon, Calif.
“Being an expansion team, the good thing is there’s no blueprint for us,” said Boateng, who has also played for Columbus, D.C. United and New England, all original MLS clubs. “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 also drawn to San Diego by its connections to Right to Dream. Boateng, who was born in Ghana and grew up in a house without running water or electricity, started his soccer journey at the academy when he was 12. He teared up while giving a moving speech at the ribbon cutting for the Right to Dream’s newest facility in El Cajon, Calif., where the MLS team will also train.
“I’m forever filled with gratitude when I think of Right to Dream,” he said 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 also feels like family to Lozano, whose first name is Hirving, not Chucky. The nickname was hung on him by players in Pachuca’s youth system who thought that Lozano, then 11, resembled the evil red-headed Chucky doll from the “Child’s Play” series of horror films.
And Lozano embraced it, hiding under beds to frighten teammates. Now he’s embracing his role as the signature player on an MLS expansion franchise — which is why he lingered long after that first game to circle the field signing countless autographs and posing for photos with the kids who welcomed him by chanting his name.
“The complete San Diego project, everything that is around San Diego, the city, the people, being part of that caught my attention,” he said.
Lozano hopes the rest of MLS will soon be paying attention to San Diego as well.