Santi

Photography by Ashley Orellana.

Santi Moar is a man with style.

“In Europe and in Spain, we really put a lot of importance into dressing nice, especially on weekends,” Moar said. “I guess I grew up seeing my older sister and my older brother dressing up for big occasions, and I started to see some interest in that.

“My sister was the one with the good taste, with the fashion taste. She would be the one dressing me up for weddings or for Sundays, for days out, or for an event. I always listened to her advice.”

Living thousands of miles away, Moar can’t quite lean on his sister’s guidance in the same way, although he admits he still takes her shopping with him when home.

Yet while he may have her to thank for his taste in fashion, it’s his older brother who first helped contribute to another passion – and the one in which his sense of style is better known.

Moar grew up in northwest Spain, in a small village outside the town of Ordes. He lived on a farm.

There were cows. There were pigs. There were chicken.

And there was futbol.

Moar began by simply kicking a ball against a wall, but soon his brother took him under his wing.

“He never competed, but everybody in Spain kind of knows how to kick a ball,” Moar said. “He gave me a few tips for me to get really in love with the sport right away, and then I never stopped asking him: Play with me. Play with me. Play with me.”

That wasn’t necessarily the easiest. By his own estimation, Moar was just four at the time he started playing football with his brother, who was eight years older.

“Every time I got home after school, it was like: play,” he recounted. “You know, sometimes I felt bad because I knew he didn’t want to keep playing with me, but I just didn’t say anything. As long as he wants to play, I want to play. So if you wanted to play for hours, I’d be happy to play for hours.”

By the age of around five, Moar had been signed up for his first team, because his “mom was probably tired of painting the walls and fixing all the windows that [he] would break.” From there, he’s always been part of a squad.

As he aged, he moved on up the ranks, making senior appearances for local clubs. But the lower divisions in Spain were a hard slog.

“I was juggling a lot of things,” Moar recalled. “I was coaching kids. I was getting my coaching license as well. I was then taking my associates degree and playing for a team. They were all in different cities. 

“So coaching, playing, studying. I was doing a lot of driving throughout the week, then I was also bartending at my sister’s bar at that time, trying to get as much cash as possible to keep all these hobbies and passions alive. Obviously, it wasn’t well paid, the level I was playing. It didn’t even reach the gas money for me to do all these things.”

In the end, it was a college tryout in Madrid that saw his trajectory change. He’d only seen brochures of the campus, but a conversation with coach Bob Reasso – whom U.S. international Alexi Lalas had previously played under - helped swing him in favor of a move to Pfeiffer University, just north of Charlotte.

For Moar, it was an opportunity beyond just a change in scenery.

“When you’re in Spain, the competition is so high,” he said. “When you’re at that level, you have a lot of people that have the same talents. They look exactly the same as you. So, it’s like you don’t really stand out from anyone else. A little bit, but they made you feel that you are nothing special. You’re just one more player that is OK at football. So I was at that level, scoring goals sometimes. I would be in the newspaper, but nothing outstanding.”

Before he could leave Spain, though, there was another twist – or perhaps tear – on the cards. After committing perhaps a little too vigorously during a drill on a coaching course, Moar injured his meniscus. While he turned to an injection to play in his last-ever match in Spain, it ultimately required surgery.

Still, if it wasn’t for that injury, perhaps one of the winger’s more memorable introductions to life in rural North Carolina wouldn’t have ever happened.

He still has the evidence. After all, he remarked, “these are the things that you never throw away.”

After a bonding session with his new college teammates that culminated with frozen yogurt, Moar was approached by a family who had noticed him walking with crutches. The children, Bella and Judah, offered colored pictures with frogs holding soccer balls, inscribed with messages such as ‘God is awesome’ and ‘God loves you.’ The family formed a circle around Moar, holding hands.

“They made a prayer for me and for my health, and gave me these drawings, told me to get well soon,” he recalled. “All my teammates were freaking out, like ‘what is going on?’ 

“I didn’t even know how to speak English the second day I arrived. I didn’t know what they were saying. Honestly, I had no idea. I was just ‘oh, thank you, thank you.’ Just nodding my head.”

That was a culture shock for Moar, who admits to having never been especially religious.

“That day, I’m like: OK, I’m on a different planet,” Moar laughed. “It never happened again, but I guess that was the blessing for myself when I first arrived. That was the first blessing from a really kind family.”

Blessings aside, transitioning to the U.S. had its challenges. Not least, Moar’s injury had become infected, requiring him to sit out the entirety of his first season with Pfeiffer.

“It was a mix,” he said. “It was very hard because I didn’t see the purpose of coming to the United States straight away. I’m like ‘what am I doing here?’ My family is spending money for me to be in the United States. I don’t know if this is going to work academically and in sport.

“But then, on the other side, I was just enjoying the experience. Learning different things. Seeing things that I’d never seen before: the culture, how they treat athletes in this country. I loved that from the beginning, and how people treated me when I was injured and couldn’t play.”

After a year out, Moar was finally ready to go. In his debut season, he helped lift the team to a Division II national title, including picking up both assists in the semi-final against Charleston.

“Our coach was very, very competitive,” Moar said. “He didn’t want to risk anything. Until we were 4-0, 5-0, he wouldn’t make a sub. He would probably never change the starting eleven. He was very, very competitive, and every game, no matter the rival, he was very, very determined to get a result.

“I guess he understood how the college game worked. I didn’t really know how college worked because I obviously was used to a 38-game season like in Europe.”

While his side didn’t repeat that feat the following year, Moar went on to record 14 goals and 19 assists over a 20-match season. That was sufficient to attract some professional interest, but not much that was concrete. In the end, he took his only real option – a preseason camp with the Tampa Bay Rowdies as they hosted a winter tournament.

“While I was in Tampa, Bethlehem Steel called me, like ‘Santi, we want to offer you a contract. Don’t come and try out. We want to offer you a contract with Bethlehem Steel,’” he said. “And I’m like, ‘yeah, but I’m here in Tampa, working my ass off.’

“They were like, ‘if you don’t come right now, we’re not going to offer you anything.’ So alright, I took it. After I signed for Bethlehem Steel, they saw me training for three, four days and then said, ‘OK, we’re going to draft you for the first team.’”

Playing with Bethlehem Steel – the reserve side for Philadelphia Union – allowed Moar to progress as a professional player, but he didn’t ultimately get a look-in for a step up to the first team.

After two years there, a new opportunity came calling. A call from Troy Lesesne – a coach that Moar had encountered back in North Carolina – led to the Spaniard making a trip out to play for an expansion team in Albuquerque.

Moar had played in front of big crowds before, having traveled away to sides like FC Cincinnati in prior years. However, New Mexico United offered him his first chance to play in front of thousands of fans week in, week out.

“It’s a purpose,” Moar said. “It gives a purpose to what you’re doing. In the end, we are playing to entertain the people that are watching those games. If you don’t see people coming to the games, then your purpose is not fulfilled, I guess.'“

“I really saw my purpose fulfilled in New Mexico. People were getting happy because I’m doing my job, so that made me happy. It was just such a difference from other organizations that I was part of.”

A 10th placed finish is something that Moar accepts he now wouldn’t look on as a success, but he looks back fondly on the accomplishments of the time. After all, as he will point out, it wasn’t realistic to expect the side to win it all in its first season.

But staying and helping turn that side into one that could win it all? That wasn’t to be. Instead, somebody else came calling.

“At the beginning, I didn’t really think about it,” he said. “I was just like ‘no, I don’t think it’s going to happen. Like, I don’t think I’m going to go to Phoenix. It’s the biggest rival, right?’ But then you say, oh, they actually want me to play for them. They’re not just messing around. They’re actually interested in having me.”

Moar’s signing was viewed as something of a coup by the Phoenix Rising fanbase. Both sides had played three matches in the season prior, with only a single penalty shootout proving the difference. The rivalry only intensified as United fans took to social media to lambast their counterparts for stickering up their Albuquerque home after their final encounter.

“It was weird at the beginning, but right now, if you ask me, I don’t feel weird at all,” Moar said with a smirk. “I’d rather be at the top of the table.”

Of course, the reaction from fans and even those in the front office of his former team wasn’t exactly the warmest.

“It did bother me a little bit at the beginning because obviously, it was my decision about leaving, but if somebody gives me a higher value than what I have in New Mexico, they cannot be angry about that,” Moar said. “Obviously the fans will be angry, but I’m looking for my career. I’m looking to progress in football, even though I had a great year over there and I still love a lot of people in the state. I go back once in a while to visit friends, but there’s nothing they can do about it.”

He found himself behind the reigning MVP, Solomon Asante, and a legitimate MVP candidate in Junior Flemmings. To make things harder, in one of his first appearances for Rising, Moar was sent off with a second yellow card after shoving Orange County coach Braeden Cloutier.

But the drama that surrounded Phoenix late in the season, with Flemmings suspended for using a homophobic slur, opened the doors for the Spaniard to make the starting winger spot his own. With a wonder-strike against LA Galaxy II in the first match after that incident, he looked certain to do just that as his side eked its way on towards the league final.

A final, of course, that infamously never took place after a plethora of positive tests in the opposition camp.

“I wish it was different, but the reality was that it wasn’t going to happen,” Moar said. “Jon Rahm didn’t win the Memorial Golf Tournament because he got COVID, and he was winning by six strokes. Then, he went out and won the U.S. Open. So, sometimes you cannot change fate. Things happen for a reason, and hopefully, we have a better reward at the end.”

On a two-year contract, he returned to Phoenix in 2021, determined to make up for the missed opportunity and secure a first final victory for a club that has been so near and yet so far for seasons.

Yet while it’s hard to expect a footballer to be anything other than motivated by an overwhelming desire to lift trophies, that doesn’t mean that they can’t be grateful regardless for the life that the sport has allowed them to live.

“If my career ends today, I think I lived and experienced things that none of my environment had the opportunity to live, my family or my friends back at home,” Moar said. “If my career ends today, I’ll be so proud looking back at all these years and all the things that I’ve done.”

Of course, Moar isn’t a one-trick pony. Those years in Spain, and in college in North Carolina, taught him a lot of skills beyond just his footwork. He talks of creating a YouTube channel, resurrecting a fondness for editing that saw him create hype videos for Pfeiffer’s athletics department.

“I have different passions,” Moar said. “I have different things that motivate me. At this moment, it’s football and just football. I’m pretty sure I’ll find something else when I retire. I like coaching. I like teaching. I like kids. I like to socialize with people. I like, you know, different stuff. But obviously, being around the sport for as long as I can is my main goal.”

For now, the focus is on winning week in, week out with Phoenix Rising. When it comes to facing former clubs, there’s no exception, as Moar netted the winner against New Mexico.

“It obviously felt great because when I’m playing, I really want to win,” Moar said. “I really want my team to be successful and get the victory so I felt amazing. I felt amazing and I didn’t show it in my emotions, but it was right inside of me. It was a huge amount of happiness inside of my body.”

Scoring in front of the Curse – New Mexico’s supporters’ group – Moar kept himself restrained during his celebration, barely even cracking a smile. With the final whistle, he could relax a little more, approaching a former teammate in Juan Pablo Guzman who he fondly remembers going mountain biking with.

“I said that the only color I missed from New Mexico United because I had the black jersey and I had the white jersey, I never got the yellow jersey,” Moar said. “I said ‘would you mind trading with me,’ and he happily accepted.”

It’s another shirt in the collection and one that serves as a reminder of the path that Moar has taken to where he is today.

Now, he just has to hope he can continue looking as sleek on the field as he does off it on his quest to lift the cup.

Photography by Ashley Orellana.