{"id":505337,"date":"2026-01-10T04:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T04:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/505337\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T04:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T04:34:09","slug":"san-diego-fc-chucky-lozano-pairing-an-example-of-what-might-have-been","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/505337\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego FC-Chucky Lozano pairing an example of what-might-have-been"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a large bummer that San Diego FC and Hirving \u201cChucky\u201d Lozano won\u2019t be teaming up in the 2026 season.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Hamstring injuries and an insubordinate episode sidelined Lozano for several games last year, but when the 30-year-old wing had his legs under him, he played entertaining soccer.<\/p>\n

Lozano\u2019s header goal off a pass from Anders Dreyer beat LA Galaxy in May and held up as the signature play of the expansion club\u2019s precocious season that reached the Western Conference final.<\/p>\n

Instead of singing \u201cEl Chucky Lozano, El Chucky Lozano!\u201d in coming months, SDFC fans will see what comes from other attackers who\u2019ll join Major League Soccer MVP runner-up Dreyer, 27, atop coach Mikey Varas\u2019 lineup.<\/p>\n

Had it worked out over multiple seasons, the Lozano-SDFC pairing would\u2019ve created big rewards.<\/p>\n

The club\u2019s appeal throughout the region would\u2019ve gone up, especially among Mexican-American locals who remember Lozano for Mexico to beat Germany in the 2018 World Cup.<\/p>\n

San Diego FC\u2019s decision to move on without Lozano is the right one, despite the heavy vibe of what might have been.<\/p>\n

Neither the soccer fit nor Lozano\u2019s durability profile were great for this season. The team has shown a knack for buy-low acquisitions that pay off. Perhaps veteran forward Lewis Morgan, a skilled Scottish attacker with MLS experience, added in December, can extend that success. The team will search for another designated player to bolster its attack, general manager Tyler Heaps said.<\/p>\n

Team ownership may have to eat money to make it happen, but cutting ties with Lozano, who can help find a suitable trade or loan partner, beats the alternative of opening up the competition.<\/p>\n

Given how many personnel moves panned out last year, when SDFC won the 15-team conference\u2019s regular-season title and became the second club in Major League Soccer\u2019s 30-year history to reach the conference championship, Heaps and Varas have earned some benefit of the doubt.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn year one, there were a lot of electric moments,\u201d Heaps said of Lozano, who had nine goals and eight assists in 27 regular-season matches and three goal contributions as a second-half entry across four playoff matches.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I do believe that this club has shown that this is all about the collective,\u201d he added. \u201cThere\u2019s no one player that\u2019s going to be bigger than the club. There\u2019s no staffer that\u2019s bigger than the club.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heaps said the decision was entirely the club\u2019s and involved Varas, ownership and CEO Tom Penn.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s ensuring that we have the players in-house that fit the environment, that want to get better every single day and that have really bought into what we\u2019re trying to do every single day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

If Lozano can get up to full speed elsewhere and earn a spot in the World Cup, it won\u2019t be a surprise. He retained good quickness and stamina last year, when he was able to build himself up.<\/p>\n

SDFC has a build-around star in Dreyer, a successful coach in Varas and a sharp defensive midfielder and captain in Jeppe Tverskov, among other selling points.<\/p>\n

Good players will be interested in joining the team.<\/p>\n

Morgan, 29, was the MLS Comeback Player of the Year two years ago when he led New York to the MLS Cup appearance.<\/p>\n

This can work out for everyone involved.<\/p>\n

But if the Lozano-SDFC fit had been what the team anticipated when it made the much-ballyhooed acquisition, that outcome, for team and fans, would\u2019ve been as tough to top as Lozano beating Germany in a World Cup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a large bummer that San Diego FC and Hirving \u201cChucky\u201d Lozano won\u2019t be teaming up in the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":505338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1370,3549,15520,7264,221,62,7289,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-505337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-san-diego-fc","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-soccer","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-top-stories-sdut","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115868943280691823","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}