Med City FC striker Garcia hopes pro soccer is next

Jun. 17—Andres Garcia got a whiff of his ultimate dream on Wednesday.

The 2021 Austin High School graduate and second-year striker for Med City FC wants to eventually be a professional soccer player.

It wasn't a professional game that Garcia played in Wednesday at National Sports Center in Blaine, but he inched closer to that, the 19-year-old scrimmaging with Minnesota United's reserve team, Minnesota United FC 2.

The opportunity arose after Minnesota United liked what it saw from the 6-foot-2, 170-pound Garcia this past school year, when he was named all-Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference as a freshman at St. Cloud State University.

Garcia's experience Wednesday extended his confidence even further, something that's been steadily happening since he was named All-State his junior and senior seasons at Austin.

What Garcia gleaned Wednesday was that he can play with these Minnesota United reserve-team guys. It's different at that level, but not out of Garcia's league.

"It was good playing with those guys, which is one of the highest levels in the U.S.," Garcia said. "It's faster (than Med City FC's National Premier Soccer League), but I thought I played pretty well. I was able to stick with them. It was a crazy experience, being at the National Sports Center and just being in those locker rooms for 30 minutes before the game. My heart was racing a little bit. But my dream has always been to play professionally at some level. Being there and competing with them, it boosted my confidence some more."

It's been a steady rise for Garcia, whose family moved from Minneapolis to Austin when he was in fifth grade.

That was an adjustment, going from a metropolitan area to a town of 26,000.

"When I first heard the news that we were moving, I thought it was Austin, Texas, we were going to," Garcia said. "I didn't know it was Austin, Minnesota. I didn't know anything about Austin until I got there. But it's good now. We've been here for a while, and I've made a lot of friends. It's been a good move."

Garcia's rise as a soccer star started when he was a sophomore and already promoted to the varsity on an exceptional Austin High School team.

His teams were great all three of the years he played for the Packers, and so was he. Garcia had eight goals and 11 assists as a sophomore, then followed that up by being named All-State as a junior and senior, scoring 32 goals and dishing out nine assists in 14 games that final season.

That was enough for Med City FC, always one of the top teams in the highly regarded National Premier Soccer League, to be interested in him. Garcia signed with them out of high school and found himself in the middle of a vast learning experience.

This was not high school soccer anymore.

"The game was five times faster," Garcia said of a league that's loaded with college-aged soccer standouts, its players coming from all over the world.

Garcia saw little game action that season as he adjusted to the pace of play in the NPSL and more. That led to some early frustration for him. Soon, though, he accepted his situation and chose to learn from it, using the team's nearly daily practices to up his skills and soccer knowledge.

"Last summer was frustrating at first, after coming from high school where I was one of the best players," Garcia said. "But then I realized that I had to just keep going, that I needed to show what I can do in order to get in the lineup. I got better. Towards the end of the year, I'd boosted my confidence."

Med City FC coach Neil Cassidy noted those improvements, which included Garcia having more urgency with his passes after realizing that what worked in high school needed to be adjusted at this level.

Then Cassidy took note of something else this spring when Garcia showed up to play his second season with Med City FC. He'd put on 20 pounds of muscle after having hit the weight room with his St. Cloud State team.

It's left him a sturdier and more difficult player to defend this season. The statistics that Garcia has put together for a Med City FC team that is 7-0-1 bear that out. The 19-year-old, who has started every game but one for the Mayhem, leads them in scoring, already with five goals.

He is a vastly different player than the one who showed up fresh out of high school a year ago. Bigger, stronger, wiser and more confident.

"Andres is even stronger than he looks," Cassidy said. "He can hold the ball now, play off of defenders and he's pretty smart. He has a knack for finding space between defenders. There is more physicality to his game since he's been in college."

Cassidy is also confident of something else with Garcia, who's impressed him as much with his character as soccer abilities. It's that the soft-spoken Austin graduate is not nearly done improving.

Cassidy considers it his job this summer to keep drawing more from his star striker. He knows it's in there.

"There are new gears to come out," he said. "There are still a couple of things for him to learn that he doesn't know yet. He could use a little bit more composure in front of the goal. He gets to the right spots, but I'd like to see more conversions of those chances. But he's got a real quiet confidence about him now. I'd say that's the biggest thing I see."

What happened with Garcia on Wednesday has only added to that. He hopes that is a prelude to something much bigger in the coming years.