The last time Aaron Guillen walked off the field in an FC Dallas jersey, he was lifting the 2012 US Soccer Development Academy U-18 National Championship. Nearly four years later, he will have the chance to pull on the jersey again.
On Tuesday, Guillen was announced as the 14th Homegrown signing in club history and the second addition of the 2016 offseason. The 22-year-old joins FC Dallas after a decorated four-year career at Florida Gulf Coast University where he won four consecutive Atlantic Sun Conference Championships, missing just two games in four seasons while being named 2015 A-Sun Defender of the Year.
“It’s just what I’ve been looking for since I got to the Academy,” Guillen told FCDallas.com. “It’s just a dream come true for me right now, I still haven’t processed it all.”
Guillen spent one year with the FC Dallas Academy after joining from the club’s affiliate in El Paso, but he made that year count. The center back started nearly every game for the U-18 team that took home the club’s first US Soccer Development Academy National Championship with fellow future Homegrown players Kellyn Acosta, Danny Garcia, Richard Sanchez and Jonathan Top.
“For me, I always tell everyone [that was] my best soccer year ever,” said Guillen who was coached in the first half of the season by Oscar Pareja before he left to take over the head coach job in Colorado.
It was the first pro environment I had been to where we train every day and it was great for me and a great experience. It just made me want to get back to Dallas and be a professional soccer player that much more.”
Guillen, who said he watched nearly every game of the 2015 season, spent most of last summer training with the FCD first team, impressing the coaches enough to earn this spot. Guillen has a tough road ahead as he looks to impress in preseason, but couldn’t be more excited to have another opportunity to play for Pareja and FCD.
“I’m very excited and I can’t wait to begin preseason,” said Guillen. “It’s the start of my dream and I still have a lot of work to do.”