BEAVERTON, Ore. – It was a dream come true for 17 year-old defender Marco Farfan.
The Portland Timbers today announced that Farfan, who had previously played for both the Timbers Academy and T2, signed a Homegrown Player contract with the team. The deal makes Farfan the first player in the MLS club’s history to move from its academy to the first-team roster.
“This is my city I grew up in so it's very exciting to be here,” Farfan told the media Friday after training with the first team.
Farfan, a senior at Centennial High School in Gresham, Ore., played nearly 1,500 minutes at left back for T2 last season, appearing in 18 matches and being named to the USL Team of the Week after a standout performance against Arizona United SC earlier in the year.
“[Farfan is] a player that has been on our radar for a long, long time,” said Gavin Wilkinson, Timbers general manager and president of soccer. “For this year, having T2 and having him get competitive games in T2 and having him separate himself [from the competition] in many ways and being a solid performer, [his] name started to come up more and more.”
Wilkinson and Porter both explained that Farfan, a naturally left-footed player, would have an opportunity to earn first team minutes next season at a position of need for the team.
“Marco's a specialized player that's been trained in a role functionally,” said Porter. “He's left footed and he knows how to play left back...and been groomed on our system. He played [18] games with T2, [almost] every single game. These are factors that go into a signing.”
“He's going to get opportunities to succeed and [left back is] a great position to integrate a young player,” added Wilkinson. “He's got a long way to go, but he's shown the right mentality.”
Farfan's path to the first team was also assisted by his time spent with T2. The Timbers' developmental USL team, which played its inaugural season in 2015, has provided young academy players like Farfan with an opportunity to earn crucial minutes developing against higher-caliber players in a professional setting.
“If the player's good enough at the academy level, we'll test him in T2,” Wilkinson explained. “And that's the need for T2. I think you'll start to see more and more homegrown players start to take up minutes in T2 and I think you'll start to see more players coming out of the T2 program.”
Farfan himself credits the time he spent playing with T2 and his academy and T2 head coach, Andrew Gregor, for the strides he made as a player this past season.
“Gregor really helped me through this,” he said. “He pushed me every day training with T2. He believed in me. So I feel like the transition from academy to T2 really helped me for my development and I think the transition from T2 to the first team will also really help me [in my development] as well.”
Before Farfan can get on the field for the Timbers, however, Porter and his assistants must first make sure that the defender is in a position to succeed. While Farfan's success will ultimately come down to the player himself, Porter acknowledges how important it is to create a positive environment for any young player.
“We have to give him every chance to succeed,” said Porter, “and to succeed that means he needs to be close enough to the first team where he's getting training reps, where he's around the guys, he's in the locker room and he starts to feel comfortable and he gets minutes in a game because...you can't block a young player and not allow him the chance to get [on the field].”
And if Farfan is intimidated by playing against and alongside players like Fanendo Adi, Diego Valeri, and Darlington Nagbe, he's certainly not showing it.
“Yes, I'm younger than them,” he admitted of his new teammates. “They're great players. But if you think about it, just stepping onto the same field as them you're just like one of them but younger.”
For now, though, the 17 year-old says that he is concentrating on staying grounded and humble.
“I'm still the same person,” he said, “just playing soccer for a career.”
