Photo by Tampa Bay Rowdies

By RYAN TOLMICH

Darwin Espinal hasn’t had it easy. Growing up in the streets of Honduras, the games were rough and rugged. Emerging from the ranks of junior college, he was unheralded. But Saturday night, in a game that marked his professional debut, Espinal’s journey culminated in the thing that makes him happiest: a goal.

Espinal marked his professional debut with a finish just before halftime, helping to lead the Tampa Bay Rowdies to a 3-1 victory over the San Antonio Scorpions. For the 20-year-old forward, the goal was important in that in helped his team to a win, but personally, it was merely just a “good start”.

The forward’s true start came on the streets of Honduras, the country where Espinal lived until heading to the United States at age nine. Those streets presented a game much different than the one Espinal plays today, one that made him the battle-hardened forward that he is now.

“As a kid, playing in the streets with no shoes on,” Espinal told SBI, “it’s a great feeling, looking back at how I used to play and the things I’m experiencing now, it’s obviously awesome.

“I didn’t play on a team in Honduras, I just played in the streets. Playing in the streets, it was just no rules. There were no fouls, no refs. I still have that mentality where if I’m fouled, I just keep going until the ref calls it. The game keeps going, and that’s one of those things that I learned, just play and focus on the ball, and that’s what I do, honestly.”

That focus never left Espinal, who is quick to point out the details of his long-time soccer dream. Offered a spot in the academy of the Chicago Fire, Espinal partially put his dream on hold to attend college at Darton State, a junior college in Albany, Georgia with an enrollment of just over 6,000 students.

The decision was one that Espinal called “difficult”, but one that the forward and his family felt was important to make in order to secure his future beyond the friendly confines of the soccer field.

“It was a thing where my mom wanted me to have a secure future, and she always supported me with the soccer, but she also wanted something secure,” Espinal said. “I’ve known that I want to play soccer for as long as I can remember, so it was tough, but it was a very good experience as a human being and a soccer player also.”

On that field at Darton State, Espinal remained dominant, scoring 52 goals in just 39 games. While he was quick to admit that bigger schools do generally provide better competition, Espinal remains proud of his roots at the school, and insists that some of the best players he’s ever played against were opponents on the field in college.

Regardless, Espinal went under the radar and became exactly the type of prospect that Rowdies head coach Thomas Rongen loves to work with: one that is talented, one that is hungry, but most of all, one that has something special about him.

“First, we took a gamble on taking this kid. He scored a lot of goals in junior college, but I’d seen him play and I knew he had some special qualities,” Rongen said. “Does he have a ways to go? Absolutely. Can he learn from (Rowdies forwards) Maicon Santos and Giorgi (Hirstov)? He will because he’s very eager to learn and very humble, but he’s got some special qualities. Inside the 18-yard box, his feet are so quick. His mobility is very, very good with the ball.

“I think he did. It’s funny,” Rongen said when asked if Espinal was overlooked. “There are a lot of clubs now in the USL and NASL and MLS that have extensive scouting. Darwin, in my opinion, should have been in MLS. I’m extremely happy with our scouting network that we were able to pick this guy up. He’ll be very special in our league.”

Rongen, who revealed the Espinal has received consideration from the Honduran national team but was forced to decline due to visa issues, believes he has a player in Espinal with great talent. A veteran in youth development, Rongen understands how to work with young prospects, but the coach also wants to make sure he lets Espinal express himself in the ways he has learned throughout his journey.

“Early on we saw that we had to teach him a lot of things, which we needed to, but certain areas, I can call myself a great coach who knows players, but I can’t teach what he has naturally,” Rongen said. “He has certain natural instincts that he picked up in the favelas in Honduras at a young age that you don’t see too often in the United States, and now we’re trying to make him tactically a little more savvy.”

What’s nice for Espinal is the opportunity now in front of him. Despite playing shoeless in his home country and being overlooked due to his college roots, Espinal is now playing, and scoring, on the professional level, something that he has thought about since the day he first kicked a ball on the streets of Honduras.

“It’s amazing man. All I do is play,” Espinal said. “I eat, I sleep and I play. It’s everyday like that. Everything that I do now, it involves soccer. Before it was school, and maybe practice in the afternoon. Today, I wake up in the morning, make breakfast, go train, hang out with the soccer guys, train again. It’s all about soccer now, and it’s amazing. It really is.”