No expansion team in MLS history had a more successful launch than LAFC, which played in two MLS Cup finals, two CONCACAF Champions League finals and won two Supporters’ Shields and a U.S. Open Cup in its first six-plus seasons. And some of the credit for that goes to Tom Penn who, as a founding owner and the team’s first president, laid the foundation for that success.
So when Penn migrated south three years ago and began laying the foundation for another expansion club, this time in San Diego, it was assumed he’d simply dust off the same blueprints.
In reality, however, the two experiences couldn’t be more dissimilar.
When LAFC launched it had no stadium, no academy and no training complex. By the time San Diego FC plays its first MLS game next winter, it will have all of those things. When LAFC launched, it was entering a crowded sports market that had 10 professional teams and two major college programs. San Diego FC will have only baseball’s San Diego Padres, the NWSL’s San Diego Wave and San Diego State as competition for attention and ticket sales.
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“It’s different,” Penn confesses.
But what really makes the two projects distinct is the management group Penn has put together at SDFC.
Egyptian businessman and politician Mohamed Mansour brings not just deep pockets, but also ownership of the “Right to Dream Academy”, a wildly successful residential school and soccer training program with facilities in Egypt, Ghana and Denmark.
In partnership with the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, the team’s other major investor, Mansour is expanding the program’s reach by building a 28-acre state-of-the-art academy on rugged tribal land about 25 miles east of San Diego, a facility SDFC will use for its first-team training center. The training center, which also boasts a massive gym and five full-size soccer fields, is expected to be ready for the club’s first practice session in January.
“This is completely different,” said Penn, sitting in a third-floor conference room of his team’s downtown headquarters, which has a stunning rooftop view of San Diego Bay. To inspire a collaborative working environment no one at SDFC, including Penn, has a private office. Instead, the team’s 70 employees share a dozen conference rooms named for iconic soccer players such as Johan Cruyff, Eusébio, Mia Hamm and Andrés Iniesta. And it’s more common to see…