Joaquin Escoto spent years building out a program that had one mission: to find kids, especially from underprivileged communities, and give them a chance to showcase their talents to professional scouts.
As the former co-owner of Alianza de Futbol, Escoto created a free, national scouting program that placed several top Latino players at pro clubs, mostly in Liga MX. Among the Alianza alumni are Santos Laguna forward Santiago Muñoz, Toluca left back Mauricio Isaías and Monterrey midfielder Jonathan Gonzalez.
Now, he’ll look to apply the same lessons he learned in building out Alianza for one MLS club.
On Wednesday, MLS expansion team San Diego FC and Right to Dream Academy announced that they had hired Escoto as an executive vice president – a position that will see him oversee all of San Diego’s Right to Dream Academy decisions.
“Looking at the residential academy (that San Diego FC is building), that’s what was different, that’s why I took the job,” Escoto said. “Working at an MLS team for me, wasn’t something that I was so intrigued by, but an MLS team with an academy that’s gonna give opportunity to those young players and being able to scout kids all over the U.S. and put them into residency with the Right to Dream model, it was kind of it’s hard to say no to it.”
Escoto joins the club having founded Alianza de Futbol (San Diego FC)
Right to Dream started as a scouting organization for young players in Africa in 1999 and, in 2004, it began placing kids in boarding schools in the U.S. It now has academy branches in Egypt and Denmark and was purchased by the Mansour Group, which is part-owner of San Diego FC. The Right to Dream network includes pro teams FC Nordsjaelland in Denmark and TUT FC in Egypt. Their alumni include 2017 No. 1 overall SuperDraft selection Abu Danladi, New England Revolution winger Ema Boateng and former Chicago Fire star David Accam, among many others.
Escoto said he got to know Right to Dream founder Tom Vernon over the past six to seven years, first when working with Alianza and then as his career continued on to places like For Soccer Ventures and, most recently IMG, where he led global football in the Americas. Escoto said “we shared a lot of values, especially giving opportunities to lower-income kids, and this whole idea of getting a team in the U.S. is something he’s been talking about for six or seven years.”
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At San Diego FC, Escoto will be responsible for “overseeing academic and campus operations, developing the professional and academic pathways for academy students, and integrating strategically with the wider Right to Dream ecosystem,” according to the team. He will work with the sporting director to oversee the academy.
Escoto said his experience at Alianza showed that players all around the country don’t get opportunities, simply because they are outside of the pay-to-play system. Alianza, he said, found plenty of players in San Diego. His job now is to get them into the system with Right to Dream in San Diego. Escoto’s experience working with Liga MX clubs will surely be valuable, too, as San Diego FC will try to take advantage of the market for youth talent in Tijuana, just over the border in Mexico.
“In Alianza all we did was a showcase, we never developed the player,” Escoto said. “To me and to Tom (Vernon), and (SDFC CEO Tom Penn), it’s so exciting to be able to scout and then bring them into residency full-time with a really amazing school, as well. Kids will be able to come in at 12, 13 years old, and we know not every kid is going to make it (as a pro), but they can go to college, and we’ll continue working with them to go to top colleges as Right to Dream has done for many, many years.”
A rendering of San Diego FC’s planned complex, along with top image (San Diego FC)
San Diego FC broke ground in November on a performance center and Right to Dream Academy campus, with plans for 125,000 square-foot buildings on a 28-acre campus located in El Cajon on the Sycuan Reservation, which is a part-owner of the club. The campus will include the club’s training home shared by the first team and academy.
San Diego FC will also become the first Major League Soccer club to offer a privately operated school for grades six through 12, combined with a residential football academy. Current plans are for the first group of residential athletes to enroll in the fall of 2025.
San Diego will also create a non-residential girls academy that will be fully-funded by the MLS team and is expected to begin operations in the fall of 2026.
“We have an amazing coaching staff that will come from our Right to Dream Academy that will implement the Right to Dream methodology of how we will play that will influence the first team,” Escoto said. “So, for me it’s nice to have Tom Vernon by my side, just learning from him and taking what has worked at Right to Dream in Denmark, in Egypt, in Ghana, and how do we adapt it to San Diego? I think that’s the magic.”
(Photo: San Diego FC)
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