Villafana: It’s a dream come true
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Back in 2007 Jorge Villafana was working nights, scraping a living by helping his uncle clean a church in his native California. Aged 17 at the time, his dream was to become a professional footballer, a dream that might have seemed a little distant following his failure to get himself noticed at a trial with former Major League Soccer side Chivas USA.
It was on one of those arduous night shifts, however, that his uncle persuaded him to try his luck in a new televised player-search competition called Sueño MLS (“MLS Dream”), the prize for which was a tryout with Chivas USA, the very club that had turned him down just a few weeks earlier.
“You had three days to sign up,” the midfielder turned left-back told FIFA.com. “I went on the very last day and they told me there were no more places. They said: ‘But just wait because if someone doesn’t turn up, we’ll give you a shot’. In the end, a kid dropped out and that’s how I got my chance.”
Seizing the day
Just one of 2,000 young hopefuls signing up for the competition, with another 4,000 waiting in the wings in case anyone else dropped out, Villafana was not going to find it easy.
“We had trials every weekend,” he explained. “There were 2,000 of us when we started out and suddenly there were only 1,000 of us left. The Saturdays went by until they’d whittled us down to 11 after just a month. We played a game against the Chivas U-19 team so they could see how good we were. There was a lot of competition but I was excited at having got so far and I started to believe I could make it.”
That belief was justified, as the left-footed Villafana, who stands 5’10 tall, emerged as the very first winner of a competition that would be won the following year by Monterrey forward Rogelio Funes Mori, twin brother of Argentina and Everton defender Ramiro.
Nicknamed Sueño in recognition of his success, the young Villafana, who spent part of his childhood in central Mexico, enjoyed a meteoric rise with Chivas USA, as he explained: “I spent about six months with the youth team and then I moved up to the first team. Walking into the seniors’ dressing room was an experience I’d always pictured in my mind as a kid. Suddenly you’re there with people you’ve seen on TV, big names and players about whom I’d always wondered if I’d ever get the chance to play with. It’s something I’ll never forget.”
He added: ‘When I arrived they asked me: ‘You’re the kid who won Sueño MLS?’. They said: ‘Congratulations. We hope it works out for you’. The old hands made me feel at home. They helped me. They supported me and they also pushed me hard so that I could make the grade.”
Efforts rewarded
The youngster quickly won over the fans with a string of consistent performances and also earned himself a place in the USA squad at the FIFA U-20 World Cup Egypt 2009, where he captained a Stars and Stripes side that went out in the first round.
“Getting the call from USA was another dream fulfilled,” said Villafana, who was 19 at the time. “That’s what I’d been aiming for all my life and once I got there I worked hard to get a starting place. I hope I can repeat the experience one day.”
After changing his surname from Flores to Villafana in 2011, in tribute to his mother, who brought him up single-handedly, the hard-working youngster took another major step forward by signing for Portland Timbers at the age of 24. It was there that he achieved another career landmark in winning the MLS title in 2015.
Recalling their MLS Cup win, he said: “I remember the four minutes of injury time lasting forever. We felt so excited when the final whistle went because it had been a very long season with lots of ups and downs. We got our reward for all the hard work we’d put in. It’s what any professional dreams of: winning the title and lifting the trophy.”
Villafana had further cause for celebration last December, when he sealed a move to Mexican giants Santos, and has since continued to live a dream that began for him almost nine years ago: “I want to make my name here too. I want to make the championship play-offs and win another title.”
That is not the extent of Villafana’s insatiable ambition, however, with a full international call-up the next objective in his sights: “I haven’t forgotten about it and I’m working towards it the whole time. I want to grow and to represent my country at senior level.”