San Diego – No expansion team in the history of MLS has had a more successful launch than Laftcwho played in Two MLS Cup finalstwo Congacaf Champions League finals and won two Supporters shields and a US Open Cup In its first six seasons and more. And part of the credit for this goes to Vacuum pen Who, as a founding owner and first president of the team, laid the foundations for this success.
Thus, when Penn migrated to the south three years ago and started laying the foundations of another extension club, this time in San Diego, it was assumed that he had simply dusted the same plans.
In reality, however, the two experiences could not be more different.
When LaFC was launched, he had no stadium, no academy and no training complex. By time San Diego FC Has his first MLS match next winter, he will have all these things. When LaFC launched, it entered a crowded sports market which had 10 professional teams and two major university programs. The San Diego FC will only have San Diego Padres de Baseball, the NWSL's San Diego wave And the state of San Diego as competition for attention and ticket sales.
“It's different”, admits Penn.
But what really makes the two distinct projects is that the management group that Penn carried out at SDFC.
Egyptian businessman and politician Mohamed Mansour Bring not only deep pockets, but also the property of the “Right to Dream Academy”, a residential training program and successfully soccer with installations in Egypt, Ghana and Denmark.
In partnership with the Sycuane band of the Kumeyaay Nation, the other major investor of the team, Mansour extends the scope of the program by building a 28 -acres of cutting -edge academy on tribal terrains that are approximately 25 miles east of San Diego, a SDFC of the installation will use for its first team training center. The training center, which also has a massive gym and five full -size football fields, should be ready for the first club's training session in January.
“It is completely different,” said Penn, sitting in a conference room on the third floor of the downtown headquarters of his team, which has a view of the roof of the Bay of San Diego. To inspire a collaborative work environment, no one at the SDFC, including Penn, has a private office. Instead, the 70 employees of the team share a dozen conference rooms appointed for emblematic football players such as Johan Cruyff, Eusebio, Mia Hamm and Andrés Iniesta. And it is more common to see someone walking between offices dribbling a football ball than wearing a cup of coffee.
“This extension club is owned and exploited by young people who also have a very clear and defined style of play and a proven success,” continued Penn. “They are among the best in the world to develop talents. So, everything we do in football operations must connect to this expertise and it is totally different from what happened at Lafc, where we created all of this from scratch. ”
Tijuana was one of the cities of San Diego FC organized trials for young budding players seeking to join his “Right to Dream Academy”.
(San Diego FC)
Lawyer, Penn was a framework of the NBA at the Portland Trail Blazers and Memphis Grizzlies, ESPN commentator and co-founder of the Sports Leadership Institute before becoming a founding owner and later president of Lafc. He admitted that he knew little about football when he took the job, but he turned out to be a quick learner.
“I could have my first cycle diploma now,” he joked. “I am much further than me when we started Lafc.”
As a result, SDFC is also much further. When Lafc was five months from his first game, he had a head coach but he had no stadium. And there was only one first team player, Carlos Vela.
San Diego also has a coach at Mikey Varas, hired two weeks ago after a passage of two games as an acting coach of the US national team. He also has an agreement to play his games at the Snapdragon stadium and has half a dozen players under contract, notably the interpreter of the Mexican World Cup Hirving Lozano, the Danish international Marcus Ingvartsen, the English Youth International Alex Mi Mi and the former defender of Manchester United Paddy McNair.
The SDFC commercially is already a success, after having collected 45,000 seasonal ticket deposits for its 32,000 seats stadium. The inventory of high -end seats, boxes of lobes and suites is almost exhausted.
The most important difference, however, is the training center and the Dream Academy and residential schools, which will have classrooms, the academy and residential areas for a maximum of 100 years, the former world football chief of the Americas for the Young Amec program.
A rendering of “Right to Dream Academy” of the San Diego FC for young youth players.
(San Diego FC)
“The teachers are there, the children sleep there, the gymnasium is there, the fields are there,” said Escoto about the abandoned golf hotel that the school will replace. “It's a little different from other MLS academies.”
It is far from the only difference. The Academy will be part of the right to the global Network of Dream clubs and academies, which since 1999 has sent 157 graduates to professional football, including Ingvartsen and Jeppe Tverskov, who will also go from Denmark to San Diego next year.
Penn hopes that the SDFC Academy will be added to this number, even if these players' time with its club is short.
“This is not our fear. This is our goal,” he said. “Nothing would make us happier than having a Ghanaian or an 18 -year -old dane or Mexico or a Mexican with us and go directly to Man U or Man City or elsewhere and play on the world stage.
“This is what we are.
Another important difference is location. Because the Academy and the Training Center is less than 50 miles from the international border, FIFA rules allow SDFC to go 50 kilometers in Mexico to promote the club and recruit players, making it the first MLS franchise with a really biification imprint.
This also reflects the city, which sees 60,000 people cross from Tijuana to work in San Diego every day, according to Atenea de la Cruz Brito, academic in Universidad de Tijuana Cut who studies the housing markets along the border.
“I was amazed at the opening of the border and the biking of this place,” said Penn. “It's a super sophisticated place.”
And as a person who has become newly sophisticated about football, Penn thinks that San Diego is ready to embrace a club that is not only at the forefront of players' development, but which will not spare any expenditure to compete in the MLS level, as is its last club.
“It will be really difficult,” he said. “But our property group is there to win it.”
⚽ You have read the last episode of soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and highlights unique stories. Listen to Baxter in the episode of this week of “Podcast Corner of the Galaxy.
