Mexican winger Hirving “Chucky” Lozano has been introduced as the primary Designated Participant (DP) signing for MLS growth facet San Diego FC, the membership confirmed on Thursday.
At the moment with PSV Eindhoven, Lozano will proceed taking part in with the Eredivisie group via 2024 earlier than formally changing into a San Diego FC participant in January of 2025.
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ESPN reported earlier this week that Lozano could have a four-year contract and a proposed wage between the $7 to $9 million vary. With the Mexico worldwide because the group’s first high-profile signing, San Diego FC and employees proceed preparations for his or her debut MLS season in 2025.
“It is an honor to hitch San Diego FC because the membership’s first Designated Participant,” Lozano stated in a information launch.
“It is thrilling to be a part of historical past as we construct a membership that may compete for championships in MLS. In each nation I’ve performed, I all the time attempt to go away a mark, and making an impression for San Diego and in MLS is essential to me.
“The membership’s challenge and plans for San Diego’s Proper to Dream Academy resonated deeply with the profession path I’ve had on this sport. I recognized with the challenge instantly and I’m assured we can assist lots of youth gamers from each side of the border. I’m past excited and sit up for ending the yr sturdy with PSV Eindhoven and becoming a member of San Diego FC firstly of 2025.”
Lozano, who could have two possibility years with San Diego FC after the top of the 2028 season, will probably be launched to followers and media subsequent Thursday.
“Signing a participant of the worldwide stature of ‘Chucky’ Lozano is the largest doable endorsement of our challenge in San Diego,” stated San Diego FC proprietor and Egyptian billionaire Sir Mohamed Mansour.
“His journey from Pachuca, Mexico, to the world stage resonates with how Proper to Dream supplies alternatives for expertise in all places, and we hope that story can encourage and inspire the following technology of expertise in San Diego County and world wide.”
A product of Pachuca’s famed academy, the 28-year-old has made a reputation for himself overseas via stints with Serie A’s Napoli and the Eredivisie’s PSV Eindhoven, the place he has performed twice. Throughout his time in Europe, he is collected a Serie A trophy and two Eredivisie titles.
Since his Mexican nationwide group debut in 2016, Lozano has earned 70 caps and secured 18 targets alongside the best way, however was just lately unnoticed of the 2024 Copa America roster — together with a handful of different high-profile veteran gamers.
At San Diego FC, Lozano is simply the fourth participant to be signed after goalkeeper Duran Ferree, Jeppe Tverskov, and Marcus Ingvartsen. Tverskov and Ingvartsen play for San Diego FC sister membership FC Nordsjælland and are anticipated to reach within the 2025 preseason camp with Lozano. Ferree, a U.S. youth worldwide that was San Diego FC’s first-ever signing, is on mortgage with the USL Championship’s Orange County SC.
The MLS membership has but to announce a head coach or sporting director, and was just lately linked with AS Monaco technical director Carlos Aviña Ibarrola earlier than talks fell via.
Together with Mansour, San Diego FC is owned by the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation (the primary Native American tribe to be a part of an possession group of knowledgeable soccer group within the U.S.), San Diego Padres infielder Manny Machado, Zephyr Companions’ Brad Termini, and the Proper to Dream’s Tom Vernon and Dan Dickinson.
Run by Mansour’s London-based Man Capital agency, the Proper to Dream is an academy system that has areas in Ghana, Egypt, Denmark, and shortly, San Diego. At the moment being constructed alongside San Diego FC’s coaching services, the most recent Proper to Dream academy close to the U.S.-Mexico border is about to draw gamers from each international locations.
Vernon advised ESPN in 2023 that the San Diego academy would be the “finest in school facility in america,” with plans to have the best working value in MLS for an academy system.