Diego Luna shoots for the moon

The MLS’ Young Player of the Year looks to the sky - while fighting to keep both feet on the ground

It’s been eight days since the announcement, and Diego Luna hasn’t stopped.

“I haven’t taken a break,” he laughs. “I’m continuing to work. I have goals to come back into pre-season ready to go. It won’t be pre-season for me. I wanna land in Salt Lake ready to play.”

Real Salt Lake is his club but he’s not in the city when we speak. It’s RSL’s off-season and he’s just arrived in El Paso, Texas, after a 14-hour drive from the place he currently calls home. We break the ice on the Zoom call by joking he could’ve crossed the entire UK three times in that span.

But truth be told, there isn’t much ice to break. Choose one word to describe the newly crowned MLS Young Player of the Year, choose effervescent. Luna has an infectious, bubbling energy. On the pitch it manifests as slaloms, verve, and cheeky celebrations - the sprinkler and other vivacious dance moves make up the repertoire of a born entertainer.

Off the pitch, it’s all enthusiasm. We can’t see his face - he’s with family, and kept his camera off - but it’s not hard to imagine the smile that’s become as defining a feature as his low socks or mazy dribbling. In his breakthrough and breakout year, Luna’s football - which saw him notch eight goals and 12 MLS assists and claim 35.66% of the total vote for Young Player of the Year, beating Inter Miami’s Diego Gómez to the award - was only half his story.

The rest he’s told in his own words. In a refreshing twist, Luna has a history of speaking with honesty and openness about his life and mental wellbeing. The result is a talented young man who’s grown into himself with half the world watching. You get the sense that transparency has become a kind of superpower; with nothing to hide, Luna has set himself free.

Now he’s stamped his mark on MLS, he’s coming for the rest. His international future is an open question, as it is at club level. Europe is beginning to stir. Clubs in Mexico, for whose national side Luna is eligible, are too. Whatever happens next, Luna seems ready to probe the limits of his freedom - and do it all wearing that electric smile.

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Diego

If you know nothing about Diego Luna, the following will serve as the perfect introduction.

Ice broken, my colleague Jake Entwistle tries to ask why Luna thinks, in his own words, he won Young Player of the Year. We want to know what he did on the pitch to secure both the player and media vote by hefty margins. We’re hoping to unlock some secret insight into his technique, a flash of his thought process, a sliver of how it feels to be a low-socked creative fulcrum for an MLS side, playing and scoring in front of thousands every week.

In response, Luna talks about coffee.