Eric Avila

Eric Avila
Avila with a fan
Personnel
Surname	Eric Humberto Avila
birthday	November 24, 1987
place of birth	San Diego , California ,  USA
size	173 cm
position	midfield
Juniors
Years	station
2002	La Costa Canyon High School
2004-2005	IMG Academy
2005	CD Chivas USA
2005-2007	UC Santa Barbara gauchos
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
2006	San Fernando Valley Quakes	3 (0)
2007	Ventura County merger	10 (1)
2008-2011	FC Dallas	65 (4)
2011–2012	Toronto FC	33 (2)
2013-2014	CD Chivas USA	57 (3)
2015-2016	Santos Laguna	0 (0)
2015	→ Orlando City (loan)	21 (1)
2016–	Tampa Bay rowdies	5 (0)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
2003-2005	USA U-17	20 (0)
2006-2007	USA U-20	10 (0)
1 Only league games are given. As of May 12, 2016

Eric Humberto Avila (born November 24, 1987 in San Diego , California ) is an American football player .

The midfielder has been with the Tampa Bay Rowdies since 2016 .

Player career

Youth and college

Avila attended La Costa Canyon High School in Carlsbad, California until 2003 and also played soccer for the school team there. During this time he also played for the San Diego Crusaders and the La Jolla Nomads. With the Nomads he was able to win the US Club Soccer National Championship and the regular season championship in the Coast Premier League .

Then he moved to Bradenton, Florida , where he attended the IMG Academy , the High School continued and by the way of the U-17 training program U-17 teams of the United States participated. In 2005 Avila was part of the U-19 team at CD Chivas USA before moving to the University of California . There Avila was able to win various titles and continued to attract attention. While in college, he also played for the San Fernando Valley Quakes and Ventura County Fusion in the USL Premier Development League .

Professional career

2008 to 2011: Supplementary player at FC Dallas

In 2008 Avila signed a contract as part of the Generation Adidas program and was selected by FC Dallas in the second round of the MLS SuperDraft that same year . There he made his debut as a professional footballer in Major League Soccer on June 26, 2008 , when he was substituted on in the league game against Houston Dynamo in the 85th minute.

In the 2008 season Avila did not get beyond the role as a supplementary player at FC Dallas. Although he was used in 14 league games, but only started three times from the start. This tendency continued in the following seasons with the Texan franchise : In the 2009 season Avila was used 18 times and scored two goals, but was never on the starting line-up. In the following season 2010 he came again to 18 missions, including one from the start; During the 2011 season , Avila was only used 13 times. In total, Avila came to 63 league appearances and two more in the 2010 play-offs. He scored three goals during the Regular Seasons and another in a play-off game.

At the end of 2010, Avila's generation Adidas contract ended . He then played no role at FC Dallas and was no longer used for the Texans in the 2011 season ; Instead, Jackson Gonçalves and Ricardo Villar in particular were increasingly placed on Avila's position . In July of that year, a transfer of Avilas on a six-month loan to the Mexican first division club CF Atlas was reported; However, this later failed during the negotiations between the two clubs involved regarding the contract details, so that the transfer never took place. Both Avila and FC Dallas openly expressed their disappointment with the failed transfer.

2011 to 2014: Various positions in the MLS

In early August 2011 Avila finally left FC Dallas and was signed by the Canadian MLS franchise FC Toronto . In return, Maicon Santos moved from Toronto to Dallas; in addition, the FC Dallas received another squad place for an international player from the Canadians.

Avila made his Toronto debut four days after joining the game against DC United . For the remainder of the 2011 season Avila was used as a regular at Toronto and came to nine league appearances, eight of them from the start. On August 28, 2011 in the game against the San Jose Earthquakes , Avila managed his first goal for his new franchise. In the 2012 season he also played an important role in the games of Toronto FC. Avila started 16 times; In total, he came to 24 missions during the regular season of the MLS. In the game at Real Salt Lake , he scored another goal. However, he missed qualifying for the play-offs with Toronto. His contract, which expired at the end of the year, was not extended by Toronto FC, so he had to leave the franchise.

As part of the MLS Re-Entry Draft in late 2012, Avila was selected by the Colorado Rapids . Just a month later he moved from Colorado to CD Chivas USA in exchange for Nick LaBrocca , for whose U-19 selection he had already been active in 2005. At the Chivas Avila finally prevailed as an important regular player. He was used in almost all league games of the 2013 season , almost always as a regular player. He scored three goals in 28 regular season games. He also played an important role for the franchise in the following 2014 season, when he was used in 29 games - again, he was mostly in the starting line-up (26 starting eleven appearances). He did not score a goal during the 2014 season. Neither 2013 nor 2014 Avila could qualify with the Chivas for the play-off games. At the end of 2014, his contract with CD Chivas expired.

Since 2015: commitment by Santos Laguna and immediate return to the MLS

In early 2015 Avila left Major League Soccer and signed a contract with Mexican first division club Santos Laguna . However, without having played a single game in the Mexican Liga MX , Avila was only a short time later transferred again on loan to the MLS. This time Avila was hired by Orlando City , where he was a regular player during the 2015 season . He played a total of 21 times for Orlando, including 15 on the starting line-up. On May 17, 2015, he scored the only goal for the Orlando franchise in the 4-0 win against Los Angeles Galaxy . In the Eastern Conference , Orlando City finally finished seventh in the table, so the play-off games were just missed.

National team

In the fall of 2003 Avila was nominated for the first time for the U-17 national soccer team of the USA as part of a regional training program . For the first time Avila was used in the game against the English U-17 national team for the U-17 selection of the United States. By autumn 2005, Avila had made 20 appearances for this age group and thus for most of the players of his age group.

For the U-20 US Avila was used; for this selection he ran a total of ten times. But Avila never made it to the senior national team of the USA .

Web links

• Eric Avila in the MLSSoccer.com database
• Eric Avila in the database of weltfussball.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Eric Avila in the database of MLSSoccer.com (English)
2. ↑ Eric Avila Loan Deal With Atlas Falls Through. In: sbnation.com. SBNation.com, July 7, 2011, accessed November 16, 2015 . 
3. ↑ Califf, Casey among 14 picked in Stage 2 Re-Entry Draft. MLSSoccer.com, December 14, 2012, accessed November 16, 2015 .