Like many California-raised Mexican Individuals, I've misplaced depend of the occasions my household has gathered to look at a match between Mexico and america. Whether or not a pleasant or World Cup qualifier, the “Dos A Cero” rivalry attracts the most important crowds to my tia's watch events, about an hour south of San Francisco.
Every conflict feels just like the fractured embodiment of being Mexican American: the cheering and moaning of Mexican immigrant dad and mom and their Americanized youngsters alike, rife with intergenerational discord. The stakes are at all times excessive, particularly since most of my family members grew up with the game – and aren't shy about sharing their tactical opinions midgame. Lots of them performed professional, semi-pro, collegiately and, after all, on the neighborhood parks.
The most important identify at our gatherings? US males's nationwide workforce rising star Diego Luna.
Diego was one of many few members of our household who cheered for the US over Mexico. That's maybe comprehensible: he's an American Gen Z-er who, understandably, grew up additional faraway from the migratory realities of the elder generations.
Now, the little child who used to run round my tia's home has remodeled right into a key member of the US workforce – a fan favourite, a fiery sparkplug and an everyday amid a sometimes-agonizing rebuild beneath Mauricio Pochettino. Diego has appeared in a team-high 13 of the 14 US video games in 2025, and he's within the squad once more for the workforce's upcoming friendlies towards Ecuador and Australia.
The 22-year-old's fast ascendance (with a broken nose incurred in a match towards Costa Rica, at that) could have caught soccer pundits off guard, however there has by no means been any doubt which facet Diego represents – blood-stained jersey and all.
His journey in soccer started lengthy earlier than he may dribble a ball.
Beto Luna – Diego's dad, who married into our household – first had his personal unlikely ascendance into skilled soccer when he was scouted to play for the San Diego Sockers indoor workforce in 1985, regardless of having no professional expertise as a pupil at Foothill faculty. Beto had solely simply arrived within the Bay Space and was unable to stick with the Sockers full time, however he caught round lengthy sufficient to finish off an assist from now-Seattle Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer, parlaying that temporary stint right into a run with the Milwaukee Wave and the San Jose Earthquakes (throughout their existence in one of many many predecessor leagues to MLS).
An intrepid opportunist, the elder Luna didn't come to this nation to turn into a futbolero. However by the grace of the soccer gods, he grew to become one, and he's now a respected coach in the Bay Area.
“The eagerness that all of us have for the game comes from my dad,” says Armando Luna, Diego's eldest brother – a participant himself, till a again harm compelled him into teaching. “The best way he threw himself into the game, ranging from a later age and dealing onerous to develop his drive and love for soccer in a brand new nation, impressed us.”
Armando grew up particularly near his dad, however later grew to become a task mannequin and mentor for the a lot youthful Diego.
The youngest Luna's trajectory has been something however standard, circumventing the NCAA and MLS programs in favor of the Barcelona residency academy in Arizona, adopted by his profitable stint within the second-tier USL with El Paso Locomotive FC. It began throughout the household, although. With three older siblings and a father who all performed and coached, Diego was perpetually bouncing from area to area as each a participant and observer since infancy.
“He was coached by us all his complete life,” Armando says. “If he had a coaching session at 5.30pm, he would get dropped off at three within the afternoon as a result of the remainder of us needed to arrange for different practices and our personal video games. Since he was at all times early, he would simply observe and hold across the older gamers and work on his abilities. Then, he'd have to remain later till our different video games completed within the night time. So he was on the sphere 24/7. That was the truth each single day. You'll suppose we have been onerous on him, however that wasn't actually the case. He cherished being across the recreation.”
Diego joined the Palo Alto Soccer Membership at age 5, a program the place his father and older brother coached and directed for years to develop a regional powerhouse. On the time, Diego was taking part in with a lot older youngsters, almost twice his age. Being bodily overmatched compelled Diego to develop a sure area consciousness and technical mastery to compete.
“They speak about [Diego] like he's a avenue baller. However he by no means performed on the streets. This conception that you just solely develop the form of abilities he has as a Latino is by taking part in on the streets, that's bullshit,” says Armando. “It was all by design. From coaching. From encouraging his creativity on the sphere, from self-discipline. He needed to be taught the psychological side of the sport shortly. We by no means criticized him for attempting new issues. That interprets to his recreation now.”
Finally, the household determined that Diego had outgrown the parochial circuit, so he joined the San Jose Earthquakes academy in 2015 at age 13. The inconvenience of fixed rush hour journey and scheduling that didn't coincide with Luna's education offered challenges for a working household that was already stretched skinny with soccer commitments everywhere in the Bay Space. In 2018, they appeared elsewhere. Luna himself selected transferring to Arizona to play on the Barcelona academy, the place he educated and lived for 3 years. That propelled him in direction of his first skilled singing with El Paso in 2021.
El Paso couldn't have been a extra applicable residence for Diego – a Mexican-American borderland metropolis that's culturally, and sociologically, caught between neighboring worlds in Mexico and the US.
In retelling his brother's soccer quest, Armando recites a quote to me from the 1997 movie Selena: “Being a Mexican American is hard … we gotta show to the Mexicans how Mexican we're, and we gotta show to the Individuals how American we're. We gotta be extra Mexican than the Mexicans and extra American than the Individuals. It's exhausting.”
Within the biopic, Jennifer Lopez performs the well-known Tejana pop star from a border city who notoriously discovered the way to sing in Spanish as a Mexican American to validate her twin identification. It's a well-known story for anybody who has recognized each side of the border: a street which inevitably forks in separate instructions the older one turns into. Go left for the US or go proper for Mexico. And be damned regardless.
Like many youngsters of immigrants, Diego by no means needed to confront the challenges of his dad and mom' crossing and hasn't recognized life on the opposite facet of the border. He grew up with soccer in a comparatively comfy surroundings in California. Why would somebody in his place give that up for one thing they don't have any connection to?
“We by no means heard something from the Mexican federation. No communication. No curiosity. No actual something,” Armando says. “Even for US Soccer, it wasn't like there was a ton of curiosity from their facet, both.”
However when that US supply arrived, accepting it was simple, even when the response wasn't. Followers in Mexico grew more and more vocal towards Luna and his option to characterize the US, which invoked betrayal of their eyes. Different Mexican-American prospects like Julián Araujo (Bournemouth) and Da'Vian Kimbrough (Sacramento Republic) have gained reward for his or her determination to characterize El Tri on the worldwide stage, but on-line trolls have lambasted Diego for his supposed lack of ability to talk Spanish (he can nevertheless it's his second language, and he prefers to reply most media questions in English).
Nonetheless, Armando tells me how followers from Costa Rica, Guatemala and particularly Mexico have enthusiastically approached Diego after his worldwide caps asking for images and autographs. A US citizen, he stays grateful to characterize his nation, and any antagonism that has come because of his alternative has solely helped to forge Diego's fortitude.
“When he was younger, when the Mexican workforce would win, [Diego] would have a match,” Armando recollects. “He at all times wished the US workforce to win. He grew up right here. He doesn't know anything.”
