Victor Ulloa smiled at the thought of going home.
“It’s a little bit more than just the result for me,” he said. “There will be a lot of emotions once I’m down there.”
On Friday, FC Cincinnati players and the coaching staff will fly to North Texas. The next night, the Orange and Blue will play at FC Dallas for the first time. For the clubs, it’ll mark the first time they’ve met. For Ulloa, it’ll be much more.
A return to Dallas means a return to where he grew up and where he started playing. When he was a teenager, he was one of the first players in the FC Dallas Academy. Later, he became FCD’s second Homegrown signing. Between 2011 and 2018, he made 144 MLS regular-season appearances and became the league’s longest-tenured Homegrown player.
Thus, few players in FC Dallas history have been as closely aligned to the club as Ulloa, and on Saturday, he returns as an opponent for the first time.
“I’m anxious and it’ll be special to get back to the place where I made my whole career,” he said Tuesday morning. “I’m on the other side of things now and obviously hoping to go down there and getting a good, positive result. But it’s going to be weird to be on the other side of things for a change.”
Ulloa and winger Roland Lamah both spent the previous two seasons in Dallas before joining FC Cincinnati ahead of the team’s inaugural season. For Ulloa personally, his trade to Cincinnati was announced the day after his son, Luca, was born in Texas.
Becoming a father and changing clubs were two of the biggest adjustments of his life, which he discussed this earlier this season.
Ulloa has appeared in 25 matches for FCC through the club’s first 27 games, and has a goal and two assists. Both of this his assists came this month and his goal on July 6 was against Dallas’ biggest rival, Houston Dynamo
The center midfielder left FC Dallas to make a change in his career – right in line with a major life change. Eight months later, he returns as a father and with a new team.
“I have a lot of great memories from my time there, growing up through the academy system and into the first team,” he said. “I’ll take that with me for the rest of my life. But now I’m part of Cincinnati, and I’m hoping to go down there and beat them.”
