Nick Hagglund couldn’t stop grinning when he learned he’d be playing for FC Cincinnati in 2019.
Part of his excitement came from the simple fact of a Major League Soccer team existing in Cincinnati at all. Even as a sixth-grade student who confidently told a yearbook committee he’d grow up to be an MLS player, he’d never considered there would someday be a team in his hometown.
MORE ABOUT NICK: Cincinnati native joins FC Cincinnati's MLS roster
Most of it, however, came from knowing he would finally be able to come home. After five years in Toronto FC, Hagglund was able to start 2019 by returning to the city where his parents and sister live.
“My daughter’s going to be excited,” the Xavier University alumnus said in an interview. “She’ll have her grandparents around all the time.”
Both sets of grandparents, in fact. Hagglund met his future spouse around the same time he decided he wanted to be a soccer player.
“When I was 6 and she was 7, we moved onto the same street as one another,” he said. “I already knew that I had a crush on one another.”
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Her parents still live across the street from his parents. It’s an arrangement that makes Thanksgiving easy, he joked.
Despite having achieved so many of his childhood goals, including some which would have seemed unbelievable, Hagglund said he doesn’t think he’s spent all his luck yet.
Anything could happen in FC Cincinnati’s debut season, as far as he’s concerned. That includes seeing the newbie team in the playoffs.
The Orange and Blue take on the Portland Timbers on Sunday in the team's home opener at Nippert Stadium.
