Forgive Milan Iloski if he walks toward the wrong bench at Snapdragon Stadium on Sunday night, or he jogs to the wrong locker room at halftime.
“It will be a little bit weird coming back,” Iloski said, “being on the opposite bench, doing things backward.”
The 27-year-old striker plays San Diego FC for the first time since he was playing for San Diego FC.
The fairy tale wasn’t supposed to go like this, the hometown kid who emerged out of seemingly nowhere last summer to score goal after goal for his hometown club, then was suddenly gone as soon as he arrived. Ten goals over 14 games in a mere 471 minutes, including four in an incomprehensible 20 minutes in his first career league start at first-place Vancouver, then …
Gone to the Philadelphia Union.
“I really loved my time there, playing in front of my family,” Iloski said earlier this week. “It’s something I’ll never forget. … I know when I left there was a lot of stuff in the media that I wanted to leave and I was asking for outrageous sums of money, which is just a lie. I definitely wanted to be in San Diego. I never wanted to leave.
“It’s fair enough if you don’t believe in me as a player, but don’t try to change the story when you go out in the public. … That’s the game, I guess. Everyone’s got to save face a little bit. I’m definitely looking forward to going back and playing. It will definitely be in the back of my head, no matter how happy I am here in Philadelphia.”
Milan Iloski of the Philadelphia Union takes a shot as Adri Mehmeti of the New York Red Bulls during the first half at Sports Illustrated Stadium on August 29, 2026 in Harrison, New Jersey. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
And he is happy in Philadelphia. The San Pasqual High alum hasn’t scored four goals in 20 minutes – an MLS record that might never be broken – but he has been productive now that he’s playing his natural central forward position, ranking 11th in Major League Soccer this season with 12 goals and No. 2 among American-born players.
Denmark’s Marcus Ingvartsen, SDFC’s first-choice striker who at $1.8 million makes three times as much as Iloski, has 11.
Iloski currently ranks 58th in Fotmob.com’s overall player ratings at 7.30 (Inter Miami’s Lionel Messi is first at 8.26), ahead of everyone on the SDFC roster except for Danish winger Anders Dreyer.
Other than the contentious exit of Mexican winger Hirving “Chucky” Lozano, Iloski remains the most controversial decision by the young club that has got more roster moves right than wrong – especially viewed through the prism of the team’s middling performance this year after falling a game short of MLS Cup in its inaugural season.
Iloski arrived on a 15-week loan from Danish sister club FC Nordsjaelland amid a series of injuries to Ingvartsen. He was considered a stopgap, a local star from Escondido and UCLA who might provide a spark off the bench.
Instead, he lit the city on fire.
The loan was set to end in July, and Iloski and San Diego FC began negotiations about his future.
“We were a long ways away,” SDFC sporting director Tyler Heaps said last summer. “I think if it was close, it would have gotten done.”
The problem was that Iloski had an annualized salary of $156,000, according to players association figures, of which he made about $45,000 during his loan spell. MLS strikers scoring at his rate were making 10, even 20, times that.
Instead, Iloski was sent back to FC Nordsjaelland, which began taking calls from European and MLS suitors. Iloski says Philadelphia didn’t offer the most money but the biggest role, which in the end was paramount for him. At SDFC, in his view, “I was never going to be an important part of the team, I was just going to be another guy on the bench who had to fight to make the squad.”
His base salary at Philadelphia this season is $575,000, with total compensation of $628,198. He’s under contract through 2027, with a club option for 2028.
San Diego FC’s Milan Iloski lies on the ground after a goal against Club America during their match at Snapdragon Stadium on June 7. (Meg McLaughlin / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Heaps put it like this last summer: “These are the difficult parts of my job as well. But it’s one that we need to protect the long-term process of this league. It’s obviously a salary cap league, so it’s very difficult to start to project into the future. It’s just something that didn’t make sense for us to do right now.”
The Union won the MLS Supporters’ Shield with the league’s best regular-season record but had enough confidence in Iloski to sell leading scorer Tai Baribo to DC United and let Danish forward Mikael Uhre leave on a free transfer – a total of 22 goals from 2025.
“There will always be that feeling,” Iloski said of San Diego what-ifs, “but at the same time I can also feel happy I’m in Philadelphia. I love my team here, I love the staff here, I love the fans here. The whole set-up here is fantastic. It’s allowed me to have a big role.”
After featuring in a more withdrawn position or out wide, he is back to his natural striker spot up top, particularly since the World Cup break. The Union comes to Snapdragon Stadium for the 6 p.m. kickoff on a six-game unbeaten run and in eighth place in the 15-team Eastern Conference after a dreadful start dropped it into the cellar.
Iloski has goals in two of the last three games, all wins by a combined 10-1.
If he scores again Sunday night, he says he’ll honor the global soccer protocol of not celebrating against your former team.
He already has secured 50 tickets for family and friends, and is trying to find more.
“There definitely will be a lot of emotions,” Iloski said. “I hope the support for me personally is positive. I hope the fans understand where I was coming from. It was a big opportunity to take a big step in my career, and I had to take that.
“It’s the hardest decision I’ve had to make in my career. They were putting me in that tough spot: Will he sacrifice a lot of money and a bigger role just to be playing at home? It was hard to say no still. I hope they understand.”