San Diego FC has signed its first Designated Player ahead of its debut MLS campaign in 2025.
Mexican international Hirving Lozano has been signed to a DP contract from 2025-28, the Western Conference club announced Thursday. Lozano will remain with his current club PSV through the remainder of 2024 before embarking to MLS on January 1, 2025.
He signed a four-year contract with San Diego FC.
“Signing a player of the international stature of ‘Chucky’ Lozano is the biggest possible endorsement of our project in San Diego,” said San Diego FC Owner and Chairman, Sir Mohamed Mansour. “His journey from Pachuca, Mexico to the world stage resonates with how Right to Dream provides opportunities for talent everywhere, and we hope that story can inspire and motivate the next generation of talent in San Diego and around the world.”
The 28-year-old has tallied over 267 all-time club appearances in Europe, scoring 76 goals and recording 43 assists in all competitions. After beginning his club career with his native Pachuca, Lozano also spent time with both Napoli and PSV, winning trophies in all three countries.
He most recently helped PSV lift the Eredivisie title during the 2023-24 campaign, scoring six goals and adding three assists.
On the international level, Lozano has earned 70 caps with El Tri, scoring 18 goals and adding 12 assists. He won the CONCACAF U-20 Championship and Olympic Qualifying Championship in 2015.
“It’s an honor to join San Diego FC as the Club’s first Designated Player,” said Lozano. “It’s exciting to be part of history as we build a Club that will compete for championships in MLS. In every country I have played, I always strive to leave a mark, and making an impact in San Diego and MLS is very important to me.
“The Club’s project and plans for San Diego’s Right to Dream Academy resonated deeply with the career path I’ve had in this sport,” he added. “I identified with the project immediately and I am confident we will be able to help a lot of youth players from both sides of the border. I am beyond excited and look forward to finishing the year strong with PSV Eindhoven and joining San Diego FC at the start of 2025.”
Gary: I used to have good friends that lived in SD. The new stadium is close to the IKEA and Costco. Probably been 15 years since I’ve been. They used to take us to the Islands Restaurant in that area that had like a Tiki Bar theme.
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I knew Landon’s group were kind of priced out. Haven’t heard much nationally from him since he left the Loyal. I don’t think he’s even done much media work. Maybe this summer with the two big tournaments.
Gary: well I messed that up, was supposed to be a reply down below. Also next to Costco and IKEA was a question not a statement.
It was only about 3 weeks ago that he was quoted as saying he wanted to stay in Europe for a long time, and that he really liked Eindhoven. And that if he did leave Europe, his preference was to return to Pachuca.
His goalscoring record at PSV and Eindhoven has been very modest for the past 3 years (6 goals, 4 goals, 6 goals).
I’m glad he’s in the league, and glad that my team wasn’t the one to sign him.
“at PSV and Napoli”
it’s hard to tell sometimes how bigtime league play translates to MLS. sometimes they flourish in a slightly easier league. sometimes they are misfits or old and spent. my concern on chucky is it’s been a few years of on and off injury breaks and lowered numbers, even when he moved to goal-friendly holland.
pandering for the sake of pandering is overrated. you either sign someone so Huge like messi or beckham that you can’t resist buying tickets — and perhaps double points for cultural appeal — or you create a winning team fans want to support. anything else, to me, is diminishing returns. you make a splash, the fans want steak not sizzle over time. and if you spend a ton up front then it’s harder for an expansion team to adjust if the initial product needs work.
i am skeptical chucky moves the meter that long, where his signing pays for itself, he’s a name but not a massive Ronaldo type name people will queue up for, and then his recent history suggests there is some injury and performance risk on the meat and potatoes of G/A or W/L/D.
that being said, the idea is he was good about a cycle ago and maybe they hope he stays healthier and does it again.
Whether he stars in MLS or not is kind of irrelevant from the owner’s standpoint. They are definitely targeting the Mexican and Mexican-American market, which is only common sense. He alone could pull thousands of fans from Tijuana. From Tijuana to where the team will play is about a 30-45 minute drive, depending on traffic. They have also arranged a series of games over the next several years with the Xolos, the Tijuana team. A couple of months ago they signed a couple of players from Denmark that have come through the Right To Dream Academy in Europe. I would like to see them hire Landon Donovan either as coach or GM since he knows MLS well and he is a resident of San Diego now. He had previously been coach and then GM with the San Diego USL team.
Is that 30-45 before or after getting through the border checkpoint? Do you think Landon would do it after his group was bypassed for Right to Dream’s bid?
That would be after crossing the border. It is now possible, however, to cross on foot and then take a trolley from the border to the stadium. I have read that the pedestrian crossing usually is only a 15 to 20 minute wait. When the Mexican team has played here before they filled the old San Diego Stadium of 60,000.
Landon’s group was never in the running after they lost a popular vote to give them the rights to build a new stadium. The stadium was then built by San Diego State University, which now controls it. BTW, the SDFC owner has a lot deeper pockets than Landon’s group did. The only way it would pencil out for Landon’s group was if they got the rights to build and then used a major portion of the land for commercial development. The SDFC owner is shelling out several hundred million just for the team and training facilities. and the land around the stadium and parking lot is going to be used by the university for classrooms and administrative buildings plus a park. I think the university may use a small portion of the land for some commercial development.
3g 1a in his last 20 appearances for El Tri. 8g 9a in 20 prior to that. Chucky has definitely lost something over the last few seasons, facing a variety of injuries. I think he should still be successful in MLS, if SDFC are able to put other strong pieces alongside him.