When Jaziel Orozco's number was called in RSL debut, he was ready. Even if he was only 17
The son of a former Liga MX journeyman spent his whole life preparing to join his father's profession, and he's making the most of his start with Real Salt Lake.
HERRIMAN — Fresh off the practice field, his gray training top still glistening with sweat from another session with the first team, Real Salt Lake defender Jaziel Orozco smiled and shook his head.
He was beaming, not just because of the work he had put in on the training pitch at his familiar RSL Academy, but because of the question asked.
The 5-foot-9 defender was just a few days removed from his Major League Soccer debut, when he replaced teammate Erik Holt at halftime of a then-scoreless match at Sporting Kansas City. RSL would go on to lose 1-0 thanks to Johnny Russell’s 81st-minute screamer.
But by all accounts, Orozco’s first taste of MLS was a positive one. And he wanted to share it with his family, and the media had just asked him about it.
After the match, Orozco called his mother, his father, and his sister who lives in Oklahoma, and shared the news. Of course, they already knew; dispatches had already gone out, not to mention a television broadcast and live stream of the match over the internet.
But the response was overwhelming.
“They were so proud. My mom started crying, her and my dad,” Orozco recalled. “It was a dream come true.
“My dad was a professional soccer player, and for him to look at me and see me following in his steps at a younger age, it was such a blessing for my family. Everyone was so happy for me.”
Certainly, Orozco’s debut was a positive one, even if it came in a loss and amid a minor crisis of injuries among the Claret and Cobalt. He’s dealing with the rapid progression of his pro career with maturity and wisdom beyond his 17-year-old experience, answering questions with “yes, sir” and thanking the media whenever he is paid a compliment — however small — about his play.
Real Salt Lake (3-1-1, 10 points) is dealing with close to a dozen absences due to injuries, many of them affecting Pablo Mastroeni’s back line. So when the first-year full-time manager in the Salty City looked down his bench and realized the teen-aged Orozco was the only player able to replace Holt when the latter was forced to be removed by a plantar fascia injury in his foot, he barely thought twice about it.
There wasn’t much Mastroeni could do. And besides, Orozco was ready. The once-promising center back prospect was just a year removed from signing his first professional contract with Real Monarchs, a move that preceded his jump to a first-team homegrown contract last January.
Maybe Orozco wasn’t supposed to be on this trip to Kansas City, and it almost certainly wasn’t planned for him to see much playing time this early in his pro career. Sure, he was a full-time contracted player with RSL. But he was also still in a position where he could spend time on loan in MLS NEXT Pro with the Monarchs, too.
Instead, there was Orozco, the young center back paired with the more mature Marcelo Silva — himself dealing with a minor toe injury — as defenders were dropping from the ranks of the available. From Holt’s foot to Johan Kappelhof’s calf strain in warmups that will likely keep him out “a couple of weeks,” per Mastroeni, to Justen Glad’s progressing-but-not-quite ready recovery from a hamstring injury, the RSL manager could only watch as each of his defensive players went down.
He had never seen anything like it, he admitted after the loss at Children’s Mercy Park. But when it came time to insert Orozco as a halftime sub, the boss barely hesitated.
“Looking back, I think Jazi did a very good job,” Mastroeni said. “It’s one thing to work yourself into a game from the start, but he really came into the game analogous to a treadmill going 9 miles per hour and you’ve got to jump on. It’s not a warmup; it’s a sprint.
“From that perspective, I think he did a really good job managing his own emotions and adapting to the game at that speed. There’s a difference in the level he’s been playing to this level … and I think he held his own.”
At one recent training, 18-year-old Christian Nydegger and 15-year-old Jude Wellings earned the academy callup. Center back Bobby Pierre, the 19-year-old Florida native who spent the preseason with RSL before joining Real Monarchs, was also in training before RSL called him up (with teammate Pierre Reedy) on a short-term deal under Major League Soccer’s hardship policy.
At one point, Orozco was one of those academy/Monarchs players — as little as two years ago, even. But his new teammates aren’t surprised by the teenager’s rapid ascension. RSL midfielder and team captain/talisman Damir Kreilach met the teenager two years ago, when the teenager was a recent addition to the RSL Academy. But he immediately saw something special in the native of Cuidad Juarez, Mexico who spent much of his childhood across the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas.
“From the first moment, I saw the talent — there’s no question about that,” Kreilach said. “He’s a talented kid, but then I saw his mentality and his work rate, the communication on and off the field; it’s something special.
“Because of that, it was a great 45 minutes from him. We’ll see what he is going to do on the weekend. But Real Salt Lake has a bright future with Jaziel.”
Orozco was prepared last Saturday in Kansas City because he had spent his whole life preparing for that moment, for his professional debut. The son of former Liga MX journeyman Alberto Orozco always dreamed of following in his father’s footsteps, even as his father’s career took them around Mexico: to Pachuca, to Club America, to Necaxa, to Puebla and the now-defunct Colibries de Morelos.
The younger Orozco was too young to remember much of his father’s professional career. But in the latter stages, he watched, learned and admired. The former No. 9 Alberto switched to No. 99 late in his career — a tribute to the Brazilian Ronaldo who made the same move — and when it came time for the Jaziel to pick a number, it just stuck.
He wanted to be like his father, to do what his father did; so why not take after the one Orozco footballer by sporting the No. 99 himself, the first RSL player to rep the jersey since 2005?
Before landing in Herriman, Utah, Orozco trialed with Tigres UANL and Santos Laguna in his parents’ homeland. He also played with Intercups MX, a club that traveled internationally to Spain, Switzerland and Finland, as well as the acclaimed Dallas Cup in the heart of Texas.
All the while, Orozco had one goal in mind: to be like his father.
“I think I got soccer from my dad,” he said with a laugh. “Looking at him, it was my dream to be a professional.”
Now he gets to live his dream, to play professionally in the United States shortly after receiving an invitation to train with the Mexican senior national team. The dual citizen enrolled at the RSL Academy in 2019, signed with Real Monarchs in October 2020, and made 24 appearances in his lone season in the USL Championship.
That led to 2021, where Orozco is on the precipice of starting at center back, where he could pair with Silva as early as Saturday’s Rocky Mountain Cup rivalry match with the Colorado Rapids.
It’s not a situation Mastroeni takes lightly, starting a teenager in a highly competitive rivalry match. But with at least 11 players out due to various injuries, he also might not have much of a choice.
“The next guy up is a cool motto when you have 3-4 injuries. But when you have 8-9, it’s difficult,” the manager said. “There’s only one way forward, though, and that is the next guy up. It’s the right mentality. I think that’s all we can do is control what we can, and you have to move forward.”
And Orozco, for his part, is doing everything right — training the right way, recovering the right way, saying all the right things during a whirlwind week that also includes his first exposure to the local media following his RSL debut — to be prepared if and/or when his number is called Saturday.
If it is, he’s going to be ready with the same good passing combos and unassuming tackling style that got him to where he is today.
Orozco is all-in, like his father before him, and the team behind him.
“I think to be a starter, you have to be 100% mentally and physically,” he said. “I feel I’m ready, but we’ll just have to get to the game and see how it goes.”