“If we put on a different set of glasses with a different set of lenses and tilt your head a little to the right or left, I think they’d see it clear as day, and I hope we can do our part to inspire that chance across the country,” Trevisani said.
The club’s quest for public funding for its own facility failed by a 2-to-1 margin in a state-wide ballot measure last November, but that has not deterred Trevisani.
“The fact is that there was a vote, we heard ‘no’ on a publicly-funded stadium, and that was the night I slept the best of the whole election season,” Trevisani said. “The next day we got up and got on a call and put our heads together and said, ‘What’s next? Let’s pivot. How are we going to fund this privately?’ It might look different.
“It might be in a different location, but the reality is we’re going to keep fighting for our home and this is a 100-year vision,” Trevisani continued. “And having a facility that we know that we can curate and count on is a big part of how we guarantee that plan.”
Like art, rivalries are created
New Mexico United’s upcoming Third Round matchup against USL Championship league mates Phoenix Rising brings back old memories and old conversations.
“When you have games that count [and] when there’s passion, rivalries are born,” Trevisani said. “When you’re playing Phoenix Rising in the Open Cup, sort of the prima donna team with the highest payroll and most high-profile players. With [Didier] Drogba [who played with there in 2017-18 , Phoenix had an attitude and we went out and beat them.”
This year, New Mexico United host Phoenix Rising at The Lab on Wednesday, April 26. Kickoff is set for 9 pm ET.
“The U.S. Open Cup really captures that intensity because New Mexico has a history that we’re not good enough,” Trevisani said. “That we rank last on the good list and first on the bad list, and there are so many people in this state that reject that narrative and want to focus on the good things, and we have so, so many of them.”
“New Mexico is a place where we punch above our weight,” he added. “And in the first year of the Open Cup we actually manifested that and it revealed itself on the pitch when we got to the final eight.
“It just showed that the underdog grit, heart and soul of a team can still go a long way in the Cup, just like they go a long way in America still,” Trevisani said. “The Open Cup really heated up our rivalries and really heated up our club in our state because it was really the first time in a long time that we had a sports team that was representing us at the highest level possible.”
Dennis Pope writes about local sports for the SoCal Newspaper Group and serves in a communications role for both NISA Nation and the Southwest Premier League. Follow him at @DennisPope on Twitter.
