Bustos grateful for return home

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/07/2019 (2465 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If you were to ask Valour FC midfielder Marco Bustos what he took on his most recent U.S. to Canada road trip, he’d probably tell you it included everything but the kitchen sink.

This spring, the 23-year-old was given the opportunity of a lifetime — to play professional soccer in front of friends and family, in the city he grew up in.

When Valour head coach Rob Gale came calling in early May, it took Bustos no time at all to part ways with Oklahoma City Energy of the United Soccer League. Within hours, he signed his contract with Valour, packed his things and made the nearly 24-hour road trip back from Oklahoma to Winnipeg.

“Everything happened so quick. Within 10 hours, I was all packed up and left Oklahoma. The car was full of stuff, looking through my mirror I couldn’t see what was behind me. We left a few things, I left my TV there, it just happened so quick, you know?” Bustos said.

An added incentive for Bustos to join Valour was the fact that Gale was heading the team. He first met Gale around the age of 12, spending his formative competitive years playing for the current Valour head coach.

“If it wasn’t for him, maybe then things wouldn’t have gone the way they’ve gone in my professional career… Me coming back here, a big part was him being a part of the team, too. He told me coming in that I’d have a big role in the team and that’s what I need as a 23-year-old, I need to play lots and keep growing as a player. We practise to play. I feel like a big part of becoming a pro and having a long career is getting the most games you can possible in the right environment.”

Since moving back, Bustos, his girlfriend Halley and their French bulldog Luna have all been welcomed back into his family home. While it’s been an adjustment for the trio, Bustos says the extra family time has been wonderful. Since leaving Winnipeg in 2011 to join the Vancouver Whitecaps training program, he hasn’t been back much since.

“It’s a little bit crowded but it’s nice, I’m a big family guy. I’ve been living on my own for a long time, so it’s obviously different. Sometimes I feel like I need my own space, but I’d take family over anything,” Bustos said.

Bustos credits much of his current success to his family. Growing up, summers involved outdoor soccer matches with his dad Alex, sister Melissa and brother Michael. In winter, they took it indoors, playing soccer in the basement. But no matter the season, they’ve always stayed competitive.

“My dad always brags about how many goals he has in his over-50 league,” Bustos laughed.

But getting to where he is today hasn’t been easy for the rising soccer star. He says most of his growth as a player happened while he was playing internationally, for Ascenso Mexico.

“It was a culture shock. That competitiveness, every day in training was immense. It’s crazy. The first two weeks, we didn’t have one day off. We didn’t have like one day off for two months. Going from ­something so different in Vancouver to Mexico, it was a big change.”

“The biggest thing I learned was not to take things for granted. I learned a lot there. But also just with my speed of play and speed of thought, they grow up playing differently there in Mexico, so I definitely learned a lot on and off the field.”

Luckily for Bustos, the language barrier wasn’t that big of a problem. He was raised bilingually, speaking Spanish.

“Nobody speaks English there. Or they do, but they don’t want to. So it helped that I was already fluent in Spanish, for sure. If I didn’t speak the language, I think it’d be pretty hard to stay there.”

Now that he’s back at home, Bustos said he’s been impressed with the competitiveness of the PCL league thus far. With the spring season behind Valour FC and the fall season just beginning, he’s hopeful that young Winnipeg fans will continue to come out to games and show their support.

“The competition is good. It’s been really good and positive, positive for the country. Positive for Canadian kids growing up, now they have somewhere to get to. The group of the players in the Canadian Premier League, we’re motivators to those kids. I think the league has been very professional so far and it’s just going to get better every year.”

devon.shewchuk@freepress.mb.ca