While Cavalry FC were busy making history in the first leg of their first-round Concacaf Champions Cup tie on Thursday, they weren’t the only Canadian soccer feel-good story to come out of that clash against Pumas UNAM. Suited up for Pumas in this clash against the 2024 Canadian Premier League champions was none other than Santiago López, the 19-year-old Canadian who turned heads at last year’s Concacaf U-20 Championship. A Canadian-Mexican dual national yet to regularly break through for Pumas, he thrived for Canada’s U-20s in 2024, scoring six goals in nine appearances. Thanks to those performances, he even earned a call to Canada’s senior team, participating in their camp in October. As a result, he’s a name to watch heading into 2025. Already on the cusp of regular action for Pumas, having made a pair of first-team appearances in 2024, he hopes to earn a regular role with them this year, further pushing him into discussions about a long-term spot on the Canadian senior team. With that in mind, this Concacaf Champions Cup tie is a perfect opportunity for López to work towards that stated goal of becoming a Pumas regular. With starting opportunities hard to come by in Liga MX, having the opportunity to play a Canadian side in continental competition was seen as a good chance for Pumas to throw in López, especially given his links to the country. Therefore, it was no surprise to see López’s name listed in Pumas’ starting lineup for the first leg, earning the opportunity to start up front alongside veteran striker Rogelio Funes Mori, a scorer of over 130 Liga MX goals. There, López immediately showed why he’s seen as such an exciting prospect. Able to play anywhere across the front line, López naturally prefers playing a bit deeper in the attack, using his intelligence to scope out space on the field. “I play as a nine, but more as a second striker, I like to play with a bigger striker, who can be more of a postman,” López told OneSoccer last fall. “But I can also play as a nine, I’m working to play with my back to goal and playing more as a postman.” In this instance, with Funes Mori preferring to drop to try and get more involved in the game, López was mostly tasked with filling the space Funes Mori left up front, either operating in the left half-space, or leading the line altogether. The latter role seemed quite uncomfortable for López, who was left to fend for himself physically in duels against Cavalry’s centre-backs, Callum Montgomery and Eryk Kobza — a tough task for most strikers, even more so for one with a smaller build like López: he only won six of 16 duels, including just one of four aerial battles. When he drifted wider, however, he seemed to come alive, doing well to attack the spaces between Cavalry’s centre-backs and midfielders. There, his speed and agility caused problems for his opponents, as he completed one dribble and won three fouls, doing well to put them under pressure. Even if he struggled in his duels and with the physical demands of playing his position — being dispossessed nine times — he was otherwise secure in possession, even when opportunities to dribble didn’t manifest themselves, completing eight out of 10 of his pass attempts.
For all of those little things that López achieved, however, the reason he’s seen as such a top prospect is his ability to create goals, both for himself and his teammates. That’s what made him a standout player for Canada’s U-20s, and it’s what Pumas will hope he can do for them going forward. In that regard, he found a way to make a difference in this game, showing great intelligence while doing so. He helped Pumas score their lone goal of the night, one they thought to be enough to secure a result until Cavalry shocked them with two second-half goals in a thrilling comeback. With his goal, which was the first of his professional career at the senior level, López didn’t show off his powerful shot or creativity, but he did well to use the kind of skills that are essential for an attacker trying to make a difference. It came off a bit of a broken play for Pumas, as their defensive midfielder Piero Quispe drifted into the final third on a rare foray forward, as López pounced into action once he noticed that his teammate was about to fire off what could be best described as a speculative effort. Knowing that the cold conditions in which the game was played can sometimes make routine saves tough for a goalkeeper, even one such as multiple CPL Golden Glove winner Marco Carducci, López made sure to position himself for a potential rebound, ensuring that he’d be first to pounce if Carducci parried Quispe’s shot the wrong way. Sure enough, that bounce came, and there was López to pounce, and he made no mistake with a well-timed left-footed finish past a sprawling Carducci to put his team ahead. Instead of being caught flat-footed for a potential rebound, or even worse, being caught offside altogether, López had done well to pay attention to his surroundings before Quispe’s shot, and he was rewarded for his efforts with a deserved marker.
Those kinds of plays are why it will be fascinating to follow López’s development going forward, as it was the exact sort of play he made a habit of pulling out on a regular basis for Canada’s U-20s. No doubt, he has work to do to become a Canadian regular at the senior international level, much less a Pumas first-team regular, as he’ll have to work on his strength, fitness, technical ability and consistency, but that’s true for nearly every player his age making this jump from youth football to the full-time professional game. What will aid his transition, however, will be if he can use his intelligence the way he did on his goal, as that’ll ultimately have to be his calling card at the highest level, something his coach certainly recognizes. “He had a first good half against defenders that are very physical, he found spaces around the goal,” Pumas head coach Gustavo Lema said of López’s performance against Cavalry. For a brief moment in this game, he showed off that ability. Thanks to that, he was able to carve out a key milestone, one he’ll now look to use as he pushes himself towards the other goals that await him.