Two-hundred and ninety days after the Rio Grande Valley FC Toros were announced as entrants to the USL, the club will play the first home game in team history tonight against LA Galaxy II, with kickoff set for 7:30 p.m. CDT. Watch the live stream above and here.
The inaugural home opener, along with as many as five total home games, will be held at at the UTRGV Soccer and Track Complex while construction continues on Toros Stadium, the 9,400-seat soccer-specific stadium set to open later this season.
For McAllen, Edinburg and the entire Rio Grande Valley region of South Texas, tonight marks the beginning of professional soccer for a community that loves the sport, but has not had a local professional team to call its own.
“I think there is a lot of expectation from the people here in the Rio Grande Valley,” Toros head coach Wilmer Cabrera told HoustonDynamo.com by phone. “We are excited as a team to be able to have a good performance in our first game here against a wonderful team. It is a unique situation – we are going to play our first game against one of the best teams in the league. It’s a beautiful environment right now.”
RGV FC completed a four-game road trip to start the season with a 1-0 victory against Real Monarchs SLC last Saturday.
The Toros (2-1-1, 7 points) face LA Galaxy II (2-0-4, 10 points), which was the first MLS owned-and-operated club to join the USL in 2014. Following the Galaxy’s lead, a total of 12 MLS teams now have a club in the 29-team USL, including the Dynamo, which formed the league’s first hybrid affiliation with RGV FC last July. The Dynamo control all technical aspects of the soccer operation, including the building of the roster and coaching staff while the McAllen, Texas based Rio Grande Valley Vipers run the business operations.
For the fifth consecutive game, several Houston Dynamo players join RGV FC for tonight’s game: Goalkeeper Tyler Deric, forward Mauro Manotas, midfielder Zach Steinberger and defender Sebastien Ibeagha.
Deric joins RGV FC on loan for the first time while serving a suspension for a red card he received at Columbus last weekend. Manotas tallied an assist in his RGV debut last Saturday. Ibeagha has started three games this season and Steiberger played with the Toros in a preseason game at San Antonio SC.
The Dynamo quartet will be familiar with RGV players Jose Escalante and Kevin Garcia, who trained with the Dynamo first team for four days this week.
“Jose and Kevin received positive feedback from the Dynamo technical staff,” Cabrera said. "They were excited for the opportunity. It proves that the message is always the same: If you perform well, you will be seen by the first team. It is motivation for our entire team.”
Cabrera has used 23 players through four games and RGV has recorded shutouts in each of its two wins, at Portland Timbers 2 and Real Monarchs SLC. The manager is pleased with the development of Charlie Ward, a 21-year-old English midfielder. Ward was a member of the Stoke City U-21 team for the last three seasons, previously played for Aston Villa’s youth teams and trained with the Dynamo first team last October.
“Charlie Ward is another player that has grown since he’s arrived from England,” Cabrera said. “His development of understanding the game in the United States has been very good.”
LA Galaxy II finished fifth in the USL’s Western Conference last season, but went on a run to the final, upsetting Sacramento Republic, Orange County Blues and Oklahoma City in the playoffs before falling to the Rochester Rhinos, 2-1 after extra time in the championship game. Galaxy II is led by forward Jack McBean, who is second in the USL with five goals and an assist.
"Galaxy II is a very strong team that has many attacking patterns and possibilities because of their talent,” Cabrera said. "They’ve tied several game and they haven’t lost, and it is a strong team. It is a great test to measure our performance right now and to see how we are improving as a team."
