Soccer <\/p>\n
Facundo Torres<\/a> is too polite to roll his eyes. Yet you can hear it in his voice as the familiar, memorable childhood tale is brought up once again, nearly a quarter-century after it happened.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cYes, my dad always tells that same story,\u201d Austin FC<\/a>\u2019s playmaker told MLSsoccer.com in Spanish during a one-on-one conversation at the Verde & Black’s preseason camp in Indio, California.<\/p>\n While today he is among MLS\u2019s elite attackers, a key dangerman in Austin\u2019s clash with Texan rivals Houston Dynamo FC<\/a> in Matchday 10\u2019s Walmart Saturday Showdown at Q2 Stadium (8:30 pm ET | Apple TV<\/a>), Torres\u2019 early exposure to the beautiful game didn\u2019t exactly light his fire from the jump.<\/p>\n \u201cHe didn\u2019t like it; he used to play with dirt,\u201d Jorge Torres recounted to a Uruguayan outlet<\/a> when his son broke into Pe\u00f1arol’s senior team in 2020. \u201cHe would make little mounds in the middle of the field or go with his mother to fetch water. I thought: ‘This one isn\u2019t going to like soccer.’\u201d<\/p>\n Young Facu can surely be forgiven for being easily distracted, considering he was barely out of diapers.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was back before I had even started playing \u2013 I think I was three years old or something like that,\u201d Torres recalled with a chuckle. \u201cAnd soccer had never really caught my interest. He always tells the story that the very first time he took me to a practice session, the last<\/em> thing I did was actually play soccer.<\/p>\n \u201cAnyway, eventually I developed that passion for playing the game.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n That\u2019s evident by Torres’ centerpiece role in Austin and dreams of representing his homeland at the 2026 FIFA World Cup<\/a> on North American soil.<\/p>\n Uruguay\u2019s obsession with the sport is such that the toddler-age Facu might well have been considered an outlier. Nearly a century after La Celeste (the Sky Blue) won the first-ever World Cup in 1930, the South American nation remains one of the most remarkable stories in global soccer, a perennial trophy contender and a prolific exporter of world-class talent despite a population of around 3.5 million people.<\/p>\n \u201cUruguay has an incredible knack for producing players, especially considering how small the country is,\u201d said Torres. \u201cYou can always find Uruguayan players all over the world.\u201d<\/p>\n For a North American comparison: That\u2019s smaller, by a safe margin, than the Minneapolis-St. Paul or Montr\u00e9al m\u00e9tropolises. It\u2019s the cradle that nurtured Torres into a creative force capable of both the killer pass and the finishing touch in front of goal, who has already inspired somewhere north of $30 million in transfer fees across his six-plus years as a first-team professional.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really is very different because, for us \u2013 or for any child growing up in Uruguay \u2013 the greatest passion is, without a doubt, football,\u201d he said of his homeland\u2019s deep footballing culture. \u201cIt\u2019s different here because there are other sports and other attractions; in Uruguay, it\u2019s all about football.<\/p>\n \u201cThe people’s greatest passion is football. And often, football dictates your mood for the next day or for the start of the week. If your team won, you feel great; if your team lost, you feel down.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2014 Selecci\u00f3n Uruguaya (@Uruguay) October 13, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n Probably no nation on earth produces such a lofty standard of quality per capita. It\u2019s both a prolific powerhouse and a family-style environment where future pros often play together in childhood, as was the case for Torres and Real Madrid superstar Federico Valverde.<\/p>\n \u201cFede comes from the same club where I grew up. So we have a strong connection,\u201d noted Torres, who also crossed paths with Columbus Crew<\/a> mainstay Diego Rossi<\/a> back in the day. \u201cNowadays, there are many players on the Uruguayan national team who come from Pe\u00f1arol, the club where I grew up. And having that sense of familiarity \u2013 knowing so many people since we were kids \u2013 gives you a different kind of confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s part of what fuels their national team\u2019s hopes of a deep World Cup run under Marcelo Bielsa, the iconic manager who Torres hopes to receive that fateful call from when the roster is finalized next month. Known as \u2018El Loco\u2019 for his idiosyncratic quirks and obsessive approach to the game, Bielsa has already changed how Torres approaches his craft.<\/p>\n \u201cMarcelo taught me how to look at myself critically after matches \u2013 how to analyze my own performance on video,\u201d he explained. \u201cI didn’t really watch myself play much before meeting Marcelo. After I started watching myself, I began to spot errors I was making, or patterns of behavior I was repeating very frequently.<\/p>\n \u201cThat helped me tremendously.\u201d<\/p>\n His respect for Bielsa is such that Torres sought the manager\u2019s perspective when Austin sporting director Rodolfo Borrell reached out last winter to pitch him on a return to MLS.<\/p>\n \u201cI actually called him to ask for his opinion. I did so because he is the national team coach, and the national team means a great deal to me,\u201d said Torres. \u201cHe told me that coming here wouldn’t change his opinion of me. He said that if I came to MLS, as long as I continued to perform well and deliver strong performances, I would still be called up to the national team.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \n National pastime<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
Uruguayan pedigree<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n