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Cristian Roldan has told the story a million times by now.
The Seattle Sounders’ third-year midfielder is sitting at a table across from me in the lobby of Starfire Sports, the team’s practice facility a few miles south of Seattle. I’ve been assigned a feature on him so, naturally, I have to ask him about the commercial. You know, the adidas one he starred in when he was nine years old, long before he became a first round MLS SuperDraft pick turned full-time starting midfielder.
It’s certainly not the first time he’s been asked about his brief foray into the world of acting, but Roldan humors me anyway.
“It was kind of out of the blue,” he says to me. “I was playing in this league in Norwalk (California). All of the sudden all the coaches get notified that adidas productions are going to come to the field at 3:00 and film us juggling. Almost like a tryout.”
Roldan didn’t want to go. He was perfectly content to spend the rest of the day at home playing video games.
But his dad, Cesar, wasn’t having it. Cristian was good at juggling, really good, and Cesar thought he had a legitimate chance at getting the part. So, despite Cristian’s adamant protests, Cesar told him to get ready, that they were going to this audition whether he threw a fit or not.
“So, anyway, I’m juggling and getting filmed and out of 110 kids they narrow it down to 10 and eventually I get the part,” Roldan continues. “It took place in Los Angeles. It took about 12 hours to film for a one-minute commercial.”
It’s been over a decade, but do a quick Google search and you can still find the ad on YouTube
(or at the top of this article)
.
It opens with kid Roldan’s face peering up at the sky, where he catches a glimpse of a rogue plastic bag floating in the wind a la American Beauty, before he traps it with his foot. He spends the rest of the clip scouring the streets for more bags, systematically grabbing them one by one. He snags one off barbed wire and another from a dumpster outside a convenience store before the owner rushes out and shoos him away.
After he’s collected the last of them, Roldan assembles a makeshift soccer ball by stuffing all of the bags together and tying it off at the top. Then, he starts juggling as the words “Impossible is nothing” materialize on the screen.
Impossible is nothing.
Knowing what we know now, it’s funny to watch in retrospect.
That plastic-bag-juggling nine-year-old is now considered one of the most important players on the Sounders and one of the brightest young talents in MLS. Given that he’s been on the team for just over two seasons, it can be easy to forget that he’s still just 21, that there are still plenty of new heights ahead to be reached.
These days, things are going so well it can be easily forgotten that if not for a couple fortuitous twists of fate, Roldan might not be on the Seattle Sounders or playing professional soccer at all.
Southern California:Impossible is Nothing.
Roldan was frustrated.
He was going into his senior year at El Rancho High School in his hometown of Pico Rivera, Calif. – a year that would eventually see him clown on the competition to the tune of 54 goals, 31 assists and get named the 2013 Gatorade National Boys Soccer Player of the Year, but he had few college soccer scholarship invitations. His next goal was clear: He wanted to play college soccer.
Roldan had offers in high school from the LA Galaxy and Chivas USA youth academies but he passed them up, opting instead to stay and play at El Rancho where he had bonded with his coach Dominic Ticon, and wanted to play with his younger brother, Alex. It was a decision born out of loyalty, but one that also probably limited his exposure to Division I programs.
He and Cesar made DVDs of his high school highlights and blasted out countless emails to prospective schools. But no one was calling. He started applying to colleges solely to be a student, the reality setting in that playing collegiate soccer might not be in the cards.
“The only thing we never did was put Cristian in a prestigious club, those expensive ones where they have private trainers, private coaches and all that,” Cesar tells me over the phone from the family’s home in Pico Rivera. “We never got to there because, I mean, money was tight. That’s why Cristian didn’t get noticed for a long time. When he became a senior in high school, when it was time to find a college, he didn’t get noticed by anybody.”
It was a really random chance that saw University of Washington head coach Jamie Clark head to the Surf Cup in San Diego, where Roldan happened to be playing. Clark was in attendance scouting for talent, but Roldan wasn’t on his radar. He had yet to see any potential recruits and was headed home for the day.
The only reason he stopped by that field to watch this particular game was because his friend, Matt Broadhead, was coaching Roldan’s opponent. Roldan had already caught Clark’s eye by the time he approached a random parent in the crowd who, as it turned out, was Roldan’s mom, Ana.
“(Clark) came up to me and asked me for a roster,” Ana recalls. “And I went to ask a coach for one and the coach said that they didn’t have any more. So, I went up to Jamie to tell him that we don’t have any more rosters. But I said, ‘You know what? If you’re looking for a player, watch No. 11.’”
Clark only watched Roldan for 10 minutes but, really, that was all he needed to see. In those 10 minutes, Roldan played out of his mind, making run after run and scoring a goal in the game’s waning moments. Clark was confused – kids this good aren’t supposed to slip through the cracks like this – but he didn’t question it.
He just offered Roldan a scholarship.
If Clark hadn’t noticed him that day, Roldan probably isn’t on the Sounders. Cesar and Cristian know this and both make a point of singling out and thanking Clark and UW for giving him the shot.
“For me, those 10 minutes where Jamie happened to be passing by as he was leaving, me happening to be playing against his friend’s team, my mom saying something, it was a combination of a lot of different things,” Roldan says. “Life could have been different. My career could have been different.
“Sometimes you need some luck in your life. I think that was a moment where I got lucky.”
In his two seasons at the University of Washington, Roldan was dominant.
As a freshman, he was named the Soccer America National Freshman of the Year, the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year and the No. 2 freshman in the country by TopDrawerSoccer. His sophomore year was more of the same as he was named an NSCAA third-team All-American and first-team All-Pac-12. By this time, he was well on the radar of Sounders Sporting Director Chris Henderson.
“I remember when Cristian first came into UW,” Henderson tells me after a recent practice at Stafire. “I remember a whole staff in the bleachers talking about this kid and where he came from. He wasn’t in our academy, but we followed him like he was. He’s from California, but to have him go to UW and play there is something we took close interest in. When we got to the draft table, we had to find a way to trade up to get him.”
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: SuperDraft
Even after all of that, the fact that Roldan is on the Sounders can be attributed to another instance of happenstance.
After deciding to turn pro after his sophomore year at UW, he was projected to go as high as No. 2 in the 2015 MLS SuperDraft, considered by many pundits to be the consensus second-best player available, behind current Orlando City star Cyle Larin. The Sounders didn’t pick until much later in the first round and few thought Roldan would be on the board that long.
But scouts were underwhelmed with his performance at the MLS combine, many of them with the same concerns about his size that had dogged him in high school.
Even now, Roldan stands at just 5-foot-8. He can jump out of the building and is a much more proficient aerial threat than most players his height, but his stature still gave scouts some pause. Could he really contribute to an MLS attack against the bigger, more physical defenders the league has to offer? By the same token, could he hold up defensively himself against attackers that are that much more dynamic than his DI competition?
The Sounders didn’t have these doubts. After he fell past the top 15 picks and was still available at No. 16, Sounders General Manager Garth Lagerwey managed to engineer a trade with Real Salt Lake to move up and take him, ensuring that Roldan was staying in Seattle.
“For me, obviously I was bummed that I didn’t go higher. But at the same time, I was thrilled that Seattle picked me up,” Roldan says. “I was thrilled because I was at a team where the coaches believed in me. I think that’s the most important thing. If you’re in an environment where the coaches want you to strive and do great things and have a lot of confidence in you, I think that’s the biggest thing going into the draft.”
Falling to the Sounders was a break for Roldan in more ways than one.
First, it sent him to one of the most prominent markets in the league, a team that perennially breaks or challenges league attendance records and has never missed the playoffs in its eight-season MLS existence.
But, perhaps more importantly, it kept him where he was comfortable. In a draft that causes most players to have to uproot their lives and move to a different state, Roldan didn’t even have to move out of his house near UW, where he lived with some of his college teammates. Although he’s been at that same house the past two seasons, Roldan says that with most of his friends graduating, he plans on moving in with brother Alex – currently a standout midfielder in his own right at Seattle University – later this year.
“We’re living the dream, man,” Cesar says. “It’s hard to believe he made it. He got drafted by Seattle, so he didn’t even need to move. He always wanted to play, be a professional player and it happened to him.”
Seattle, Washington: The Future
By most measures, Roldan’s first two seasons in MLS have gone as smoothly as possible.
His rookie year in 2015, he played in 22 games and started 11 of them. Last year, he became an integral part of Seattle’s starting XI beside franchise linchpin Ozzie Alonso on the first Sounders team to win an MLS Cup.
He’s doing things he never thought he would do, playing on the same team as United States Men’s National Team legend Clint Dempsey. His best friend on the Sounders is forward Jordan Morris, Seattle’s Homegrown goal-scoring wunderkind who just happens to be one of the more polished US soccer prospects in recent memory. Roldan eats dinner with Morris and his family at their house on Mercer Island at least once a week.
Life is crazy. Sometimes, it still doesn’t feel like all of this is really happening.
“I never thought I would be playing college soccer, let alone going pro. I graduated from high school four years ago,” Roldan said. “It’s a surreal feeling. Seriously, I was applying to colleges hoping I would get admitted just for school. I was planning on staying in California.
“To now be an MLS Cup champion, to be playing alongside the guys I’m playing with? It’s humbling, for sure. It just gives you a perspective on life and what you can accomplish.”
Even so, he’s far from a finished product.
While Morris has managed to break into the regular rotation with the USMNT, Roldan has yet to procure a senior cap. He has eligibility for both El Salvador and Guatemala through Cesar and Ana and, although it also feels like a matter of time before U.S. coach Bruce Arena gives him a chance, El Salvador and Guatemala have courted him.
Should he continue to develop, attention from overseas leagues could also soon follow. It might pain Sounders fans, to hear it but the day could very well come where Roldan has to make a decision on whether to say stateside or try his hand elsewhere.
It’s something that Roldan admits he’s thought about, although considering how things have gone thus far with the Sounders, he certainly seems primed to remain a midfield cog for at least the next few seasons to come.
At the moment, Roldan finds himself in something of a glory zone. He’s 21, already an MLS Cup champion with his best playing days still in front of him. At some point a decision on what country he represents will have to be made, whether it’s the U.S. or not. The Sounders might not win MLS Cup every year. Lulls in individual and collective form are bound to happen as is the criticism that accompanies that.
For the moment, though, all of that can wait for another day.
“I’m very, very happy here,” he says. “Seattle’s a good place, it’s been good to me. You never know. Things can happen where maybe you stay here for a long period of time or maybe you head out in a couple years.
“But for me, I want to take it day by day. I want to establish myself here as a consistent, very good MLS player first and foremost. What’s important right now is to just play the best I can, the best I can possibly play.”
