The Cult of Diego Luna
- Fred
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 14 hours ago
And you what? I'm ankle deep in that cult, I love Diego Luna.
From Beacon of Speech in January of 2025: "I had the (USMNT) game on in the background. About halfway through the first half, the camera zoomed in on a player I had never seen before. The kid looked like he was on the wrong end of a car crash. Cotton shoved in his nostrils, blood on his face, and a red, swollen nose.
The first thing I thought was "dude, it's a friendly, you need to take a break." I looked up # 10 and it was Real Salt Lake's Diego Luna. Luna then set up the first goal with a picture-perfect pass on a crossing run.....
Apparently, this is only Luna's third start for the USMNT. The heavily tattooed Luna stands only 5'3" but looks like an MMA Flyweight. Luna led the 16-7-11 Real Salt Lake squad to the playoffs this past season and was the team leader in assists. Luna was also among the team leaders in deep-dive analytical stats like Key Passes and Pass%."
Not only did I notice the performance, corporate America did, too. You can get a few glimpses of that legendary Luna match in the Bank of America Commercial below:
But after that friendly against Costa Rica, Luna continued to perform well in USMNT games, scrapping for every 50/50 ball and creating opportunities where none existed.
Luna scored 4 goals and 4 assists in games many of the USMNT first-teamers weren't available for. At every opportunity, Luna flashed that boyish grin and played his ass off. No one wanted to be on the U.S. Men's National Team more than Diego Luna.
But just because you want to be on the USMNT World Cup roster, doesn't mean you get to be on the USMNT World Cup roster.
If you gave me some time to research the Top 26 soccer players from America, today, right this second, I'm not sure that Luna would be on that list. But no matter how many players you want, you can still only play 11 players at a time.
Which brings us to crux of the article.
The decision not to pick Luna is not going to be the deciding factor as to whether the United States wins the World Cup or not. America's ceiling in the World Cup is the Semifinals, their floor is a first round exit. With the exceptions of South Africa and Qatar, every host has made it out of the group stage.
The United States will go as far as their starting XI takes them. Arguing about Luna, arguably the last man cut, is almost a moot point. But if the Americans finish 1-1-1 in the group stage playing sluggish and listless soccer, generating very little offense with Gio Reyna notching little playing time, you will know Pochettino made a mistake.
Luna would have been a perfect fit as a spark off the bench for America, but by picking Reyna, you are going with unrealized talent vs. accomplished grit, measurables vs. unmeasurables.
Which is the sin of general managers across nearly every sport.
Why am I critical of Manager Mauricio Pochettino before even one second of World Cup has been played?
Earlier this week, his representatives were already inquiring him about being the head coach over at Italian-side AC Milan for when the World Cup ends.
For Pochettino, being America's Coach is just another paycheck.
For Mexican-American Diego Luna, playing for a joint Mexican-American World Cup would have been a dream come true. At 22, this snub hardly ends his career, but ends a potentially great fairy-tale sports story.