San Francisco City FC are having one of their best ever season in USL League Two and the league’s partnership with Sports Engine has made it easier than ever to follow along with the teams in the fourth division of US Soccer.

While tuning in to a SF City game, in which they ran riot, I was more than pleasantly surprised by the amazing conversation taking place in the booth - one man, named Mark, was only speaking en Español while his partner was responding in English. And while I don’t speak Spanish, I felt like I was 100% involved in the dialog.

So I reached out, scheduled a time, and unfortunately something came up for Mark which he was unable to hop on the pod. It’s a loss, for sure, but getting to talk soccer with Jack Lowery was a great conversation and I’m happy to share it here.

So, can you tell me, Jack, how do you how do you work together? I mean, do you two work together on any other broadcasting or commentary or is it just San Francisco City?

No this was thrown together basically two years ago. So, I started with the club halfway through the season. I was just asked to call the Pride match against Davis Legacy a few years ago and it went really well. I feel like I got really lucky too. Christopher Barrios hit 90th minute winner in that match. So, I got to have a big goal call there at the end. And then we had a community event at Standard Deviant because the club was playing a friendly against City Tapatio, which is the one of the development squads for Chivas, if I'm not mistaken.I think it's their under 21s.

So, we were having an event with their players and our players there and basically, was just there with some supporters who, you know, it's kind of how a lot of ideas start with a pint glass at hand. It was Mark, and I forget who the other folks were, but we're just like, hey, what if, what if? You know, and it was one of those things where it had never really been done before.

And, you know, I've worked in television pretty much my whole adult life, working for the Warriors and Giants and a lot of other of the local pro teams. It's just you're programmed to kind of go one kind of way and I was just thinking that's not gonna work it's just not gonna work but I had only been there for two games so I was just kind of like okay let's try it. And we did, and it's that silly “the rest is history” kind of thing.

So, you've you've clearly picked up some Spanish along the way because the most recent broadcast I listened to, was it the 5-0, I think, that you two worked on last week?

Oh, the match against Glenn's.

Was Glenn's 5-0? Or was that… Oh, no, no, no. The 5-0 was a way, I think, to Marin.

Yeah, I was going to say that was at Marin. That (the Glen’s match) was 2-0. I mean, there's the little things, like “Saca la Banda”, which just means throw in, which are very fun. It's those little sayings here and there. It's the same thing with learning. commentary or learning Spanish through commentary you know is a lot different than if I were just to learn Spanish to go travel for a month or something like that, just because there's a lot more just little idioms and stuff.

I remember I like to ask Mark that, I think you you can hear it on the broadcast against Glenn's, where I say some English idiom and I go, well, “what's the what's the Spanish equivalent of that?”, or at least Mexican-Spanish equivalent of that? Because, like pretty much every other language, Spanish is incredibly regional.

Jack and Mark Federico Moreno provide one of the most entertaining soccer broadcasts, across all levels, in the United States.

You've got this refreshing and entertaining broadcast style that we were speaking about. And you had mentioned that you were doing work for other leagues and teams at this Division IV amateur level. Can you tell me a few of the teams that you've done work for recently?

So, last night I called San Juan playing Project 51O. The day before that I, did Vermont Green, which that was a fun, that was just a wild game! I've been calling Monterey Bay Sirens in the USLW. I'm calling ASMG in the USL2 and USLW. Haven't called them yet because there was that chemical spill near their field, down in Southern California.

That's the beauty of lower level soccer and SF City; I'm trying to think… I feel like there's another club in there I've been running pretty hard. So I’m hosting a video game conference in Sacramento next weekend. So, come to the Roseville Video Game Conference on the 20th and 21st! So, I'm keeping pretty darn busy right now with with soccer it's a nice time.

Do you have any aspirations for getting on ESPN's list for USL League One and Championship voiceovers? I know there's a handful of of broadcasters that do work on it.

Yeah, that seems to be the trend these days. It's been like that for a while. I mean, even if you look back to like 15 years ago with the Ray Hudson broadcasts, you know, where they're calling Barcelona games from a studio and Ray Hudson would scream so loud you could hear the echo through the studio, um you know, like the bouncing off of the walls and stuff.

Yes. I mean, nothing's obviously ever going to beat the announcer being there - feeling it. Their microphone picking up the madness and everything. But, that's something that's going to continue to happen here. I have colleagues who are doing that for NWSL right now. Yeah, I'm open and ready for all opportunities. SF City is always going to be my home base, you know, I always liken SF City to summer camp. It's such a sprint.

The USL2, the vast majority of kids in USL2 are going to be basically collegiate players trying to keep fitness up. So, it's it's always going to be very fast paced and very fun. Whatever lies ahead is going to be very fun. I've been having fun conversations with folks that I can't really… nothing set in stone, but, I've been having some fun conversations with some, there's a future and stuff.

So, you moved to San Francisco to go to college and you were introduced to soccer by M - What we love here, Jack, is we love an origin story. So elaborate.

Sure. All right. Well, I'll give the spiel.

Tell me how you fell in love with football.

All right, I'll give you the whole spiel. So basically, first memory, like a lot of millennials for me, is Brandy Chastain ripping the top off. That's the first memory I have of soccer. The next memory that I have is in ‘02, my dad waking me up for the quarters for US versus Germany. So, that was the first match I ever watched. And I just remember being really pissed off because longtime American fans will understand how frustrating that game was.

That was a very frustrating match, especially to wake up at 4:30 in the morning for. I grew up in SoCal, so there's plenty of kids playing soccer all around and stuff. One of my friends, Ari, I remember showed me PES, but I remember getting confused on PES because the first soccer video game I got was… I grew up basically like four houses down from my grandparents. I was very lucky. And their next door neighbor, Bernice, was this old woman who she basically was like, “Hey, Jack” and basically, I think her son wanted MLB Slugfest or NFL Blitz, but she bought Red Card 2003, which has Brian McBride on the cover randomly.

It's basically Midway made a soccer version of Slugfest or NFL Blitz. And so, she was like, “do you want this?” and that was the first soccer game I played, and it was so addicting because there's no rules and you can like kick the ref and you know, you can play as a dolphin. You can play as SWAT team samurai - it's a crazy game! Highly recommended PS2, Xbox, whatever.

So, I played super heavy on that and like I said, played PES with my friend Ari. We watched a little bit of 06 and then I remember the first club match I watched was by the time I had gotten to high school, you know, you started hearing about this kid named Messi and stuff.

To basically seal it, that was my first introduction into club um you know 2010 was on in the house, I remember, but you know people romanticize that tournament a lot. But if you look back it's actually, I believe, the lowest scoring tournament and everyone's like “oh the ball” because the ball went weird but people can score anyways.

The Jabulani?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, it you know, it wasn't the most exciting tournament, but anyways, I remember watching more than I did in 06 and obviously more than 02.

Like a lot of us, FIFA got you hooked on the sport?

Evan, my buddy from high school, and I went up to USF - we met M at orientation. He brought FIFA into our room. So, it was me, my roommate, Hafiz, who was a Real Madrid fan, and Basically, M and Hafiz introduced us to FIFA. And, you know, as a freshman in college who is 18 and away from his parents for the first time, all I did was play FIFA for hours.

The four of us live together for six years, maybe seven years or whatever. M played on the US under 15s and he had played against Jeannie Wijnaldum; So, he wasn't just a random soccer fan - he was like tapped into the sport, you know? And so it was really nice to have him as a sounding board.

He would just murder me on FIFA 12 with AC Milan. That was when they had Zlatan! They won the Scudetto that year; they had Zlatan, Rabinho, Bojan, I think was the next year? They had Kevin Prince Boateng on that team… and Ignacio Abate, who was the fastest right back in FIFA 12. Hafiz would use Real Madrid and he put Ronaldo at striker.

So, I talk about these games because these games were the first ones that I ever “called” because we basically lived in this dumpy house that was 10 minutes away from San Francisco State; basically on the border - our side of the 280 was San Francisco and the other side was Daily City, We would just play FIFA all the time as a house. We had this specific chair called the throne where we had a tournament every Sunday where if you won the tournament, you got to sit in the throne for the week.

I think I maybe got one. That's being generous to myself. Cause once again, like at this point, we're maniacs at FIFA. We all have children and are married now, so we can't play.

Let's talk about San Francisco city FC.

You sure you don't want to just keep talking about FIFA?

It could be a whole other show! So, San Francisco City is having a stellar season. I think Glens are in a little lull and I think San Juan, last year, was sort of a surprise. Am I wrong?

Yeah well, I wouldn't say a surprise. I mean... San Juan's a club like Davis Legacy or like Glens where these are kids who have been playing together for quite some time, you know? Like you said, these divisions can get a little top heavy - I think the NorCal division is anything but; I think it's more a reflection of how good the division is that San Juan is in last.

Because they're a very solid team. They defend like…I called them last night against 51o and they defend very well, you know it's unfortunate for them that they have to play in 100 degree weather every time they play at home. But no, it's that there's excellent parody in the in this league and it's, I think, a reflection of what I mentioned it earlier; basically there's more and more places now where folks can go and learn the game and stuff.

I maybe don't agree with, you know, kind of a lot of their price points in which they have these kids paying to play because it's, you know, keeping out a majority of the population.

That's why I love City, I mean, obviously we don't have a youth program like that, but what's so important is that we don't have money first to think about. Like oh, well, we have to please this person or we have to, you know, pay this person or whatever. Everyone at the club more or less is a volunteer that is helping out who's on the board and everything like that.

I remember seeing something once, where someone's like, “oh, SF City's a startup.” It's like, NO, it's not. No one is under the illusion that we're going to make money off of this thing.

It's like family?

You know what I mean? Like, this is this is people's lives. This is people's families, dude. The “Fogfather,” the head ultra for City, Pete Bogdis, whose mom, Audrey, was sick this year and stuff. He had to miss games, so, Coach Birdie is telling the players, go to the supporters when we score our first goal and you're going to hold up a sign that says we love you, Audrey, because Audrey's our TIFO.

And that's family. And this is this is this is football heritage. San Francisco has the most historic city league, in terms of football, in the country. The SFSFL started in 1902. First soccer specific stadium is here at Boxer Stadium next to Balboa Park. And when you talk to Pete, Pete grew up basically in a really big Greek family and the SFSFL was basically a cultural event.

You know, you would go to church on Sunday and then the Greek team would play, like the Sons of Italy or whomever, and you know it was a thing where basically different cultures came together under this one uniting banner which is the whole point of the sport.

If I were to ask you about rivals, the Glens come to mind. But historically, even including the San Francisco Soccer Football League, do City have any other rivals or are they all pretty friendly?

Nah, I think it's just Glenn's and everybody else. It's the one, the way I said it on the broadcast, the Derbi de la Dahlia and obviously Glenn's are the established team. They're the old money. They've been here since the 60s. They have a good development side that, as as you've seen, they consistently are, near or at the top of that division. They're consistently sending kids to college on both the men and women's side. One of my broadcast partners, Keely Roy, very talented broadcaster, played at Glenn's and then played at Cal and USC for and and is still playing to this day. She just played in TST.

They're around, but it's almost the big brother / little brother situation where it feels like, you know, Glens has kind of been able to body us. But if you look back over the past three years, the puberty has been kicking in more and more. Obviously, we knocked them out of the playoffs a couple of years ago with that big Marco Jacques goal. I mean, you know, knock wood. They haven't beat us in the last three seasons now. So,we're kind of at this point now where the team is not necessarily afraid. They're just comfortable.

I'm coming down to San Francisco and I need a big wild crowd for this episode. What can we do?

City fans will be there. I know City fans are screaming at the radio (podcast) going, Dunk on them, Jack! Dunk on them! It's on Treasure Island. So, that already is going to be a barrier. That's like the classic San Francisco thing where it's like, if I have to cross a bridge or like go underwater, it's going to be, it's going to be a little more difficult. Obviously there's going to be a lot of La Bahia (the consolidated supporters group) all hooting and hollering. But I wouldn't necessarily bank on that being a sea of green, so to speak.

LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW WITH JACK LOWERY HERE

- by Josh Duder