“Valentin, to his credit, has stepped up,” said Mike Jeffries, General Manager and current head coach at the Independence. “He’s been really good in training. He’s come into games and had an impact. His work rate and willingness to do some of the dirty work defensively is a plus for him, and he’s always capable of pulling off a play.”
Sabella’s love of the game came from his boyhood in Argentina. Born in Buenos Aires, his family moved to Miami when he was seven. There that seed of passion turned into something bigger – a dream to hunt. “It was tough. I had to learn a new language and a whole new culture,” said Sabella who recalls early schooling in the States where teachers held up cards with objects on them and he’d have to identify them in Spanish. “But soccer was always a connection, a way to learn and make friends.”
The player, who’s still waiting to score his first pro goal, has weathered obstacles since signing up with Charlotte. The coach whose eye he caught, Jim McGuinness, was fired shortly after his arrival and Sabella had to prove himself all over again.
It wasn’t all roses when he left his Miami home either. All farewells, even those with great promise, are melancholy around the edges. He said goodbye to his teammates at the Soccer Soldiers. “I thanked them for everything they did for me. For taking me under their wing and showing me the way,” said Sabella, who singled out Coach Godoy for special thanks. “He told me, ‘now you got there and that’s when the real work begins. He told me to ‘be the first one at training and the last one to leave…remember how hard it was to get here and use that as motivation.’”
For the teenage Sabella, never having lived out on his own, saying goodbye to his family was tough. “They were so proud,” said Sabella, now living with an Independence teammate in an apartment in North Carolina. “I knew it was a big step for me because my father got emotional when he said goodbye. This man is a rock, and I never saw him cry before. It was something.”
