Star winger Hirving “Chucky” Lozano missed Mexico’s friendly against Cameroon at Snapdragon Stadium last June with a knee injury, but he might be making regular appearances at the Mission Valley venue starting next February.
San Diego FC, the Major League Soccer expansion franchise set to launch next year, is engaged in negotiations with Lozano to become the club’s first marquee g. One source characterized the negotiations as “very, very far along” and “on the path to happening.” The transfer fee, first reported by The Athletic, is in the $12 million range.
Some may consider that a steal for a player of Lozano’s stature, given his value to a San Diego club that seems intent on capturing the attention and imagination of the border region. As recently as 2021, Lozano commanded a $48 million transfer fee from Dutch club PSV Eindhoven to Italy’s Napoli, a record for a Mexican player.
Transfermarkt.com, a website that tracks international players, estimates his current value at $19.2 million.
Lozano returned to PSV for the 2023-24 season with a five-year . The deal with San Diego FC is expected to be finalized in the next few weeks, although Lozano would remain with PSV through the first half of the summer-to-spring European season and SDFC in January ahead of the 2025 MLS season.
Lozano would be 29 then, younger than many high-profile players who come to MLS from Europe in the twilight of their careers. The quartet of stars at Inter Miami — Lionel Messi, Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba and Carlos Suarez — are all between 35 and 37. French striker Olivier Giroud, who is reportedly headed to LAFC this summer, turns 38 in September.
Lozano won Liga MX and CONCACAF Champions League titles with Mexican club Pachuca in 2017, precipitating a move to PSV in the Netherlands’ top division. But he really exploded on the international scene at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, starting all four of Mexico’s games and scoring the lone goal in a 1-0 win against . He also started all three of Mexico’s games in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Lozano has played 70 times for Mexico, scoring 18 goals. This season, he has six goals in 30 appearance across all competitions for PSV, including seven games in the UEFA Champions League.
MLS offers Lozano a chance to move closer to home with the 2026 World Cup co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada. It also makes him, in many ways, the face of the franchise and an ambassador for the Right to Dream youth academy that will be San Diego FC’s developmental pipeline.
The $150 million academy is being built on the Sycuan tribe’s reservation within 31 miles of the border, which, according to FIFA rules, allows San Diego FC to recruit players from both the United States and Mexico.
SDFC recently hired Joaquin Escoto, a prominent figure in the Hispanic soccer community in the United States, to run the academy. The club’s sporting director, according to numerous reports, will be AS Monaco’s Carlos Avina, who grew up in Mexico. Now Lozano, one the biggest names in Mexican soccer, is being courted as a designated player, which allows an MLS team to sign him to a lucrative contract without concern for the league’s salary cap.
