Nearly three years ago, when Matt Valentine was conjuring up his lofty ambitions for the professional soccer club he dreamed of building in Dallas, he jotted down a list of players as potential dream signings.

At the top of that list? The Mexico national team’s record goalscorer, Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernández, who at the time was nearing the end of his four seasons with Major League Soccer’s LA Galaxy.

“I forgot that I even put that on there,” Valentine, the now founder and chairman of Atlético Dallas, said with a smile in an exclusive interview with The Athletic on Monday morning. “I never in my wildest dreams thought we could have a player of his caliber right off the bat.”

After a months-long courtship, that included keeping Valentine’s dream signing under wraps through this summer’s men’s World Cup, the USL Championship expansion side has announced Hernández as its first player before a debut season in 2027.

The 38-year-old Mexican international has signed a two-year contract, with a club option for a third, pending league and federation approval, Atlético Dallas announced on Monday. The signing includes plans for Hernández to eventually move into the club’s sporting department, with ambitions of growing the sport in the U.S. city.

“It’s a new chapter in my career, in my life,” Hernández told The Athletic. “It’s a project that I’m very attracted to because it’s a long-term project. It’s (just) starting, but it’s not that I’m going to be here just for one year and then ‘Goodbye.’ I’m going to have a relationship with this club for (the long term), and I hope we can achieve our goals.

“Of course, we want to win championships. We want to win games. We want to be a great football club, as well – but what we want the most is to connect with the Dallas people, and they can feel represented. And Atlético Dallas can become something very important for the city.”

Hernandez scored 39 goals in 82 matches for LA Galaxy over four seasons from 2020 (Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images)

Hernández was last with his boyhood club, Chivas Guadalajara of Mexico, where he signed a two-year contract in January 2024. Chivas is where he started his globetrotting journey as a professional footballer in 2006 at 18 years old, but his late-career homecoming was marred by injury and criticism.

After his time at Chivas ended in December, Valentine saw an opening when he learned Hernández was in Dallas. His chief strategy officer called and asked if he would be interested in trying to set up a meeting — Valentine jumped at the offer. “I was blown away, first of all, that it was even an option,” he recounted. “We’d be crazy not to (try).”

It took between four and six weeks to arrange a sit-down, and then the courtship began.

Valentine and co were keen on selling him their vision, and Hernández, they realized, was thinking beyond what he could offer the club on the pitch.

“Because of my career and because of what happened in Guadalajara in these two years, I didn’t want to go and just play for (the sake of) playing,” Hernández said. “I’m gonna be the face of this organization, so far. I’m gonna help the league to get more connection, as well, with a lot of cities that they might not have MLS teams, or they have USL teams. I’m gonna bring a lot of my expertise” to the club.

Hernández is considered one of the greatest Mexican players to have ever played, scoring 59 goals across 109 appearances with the national team. Known as Chicharito (Little Pea), he represented his country in three World Cups, a Copa América, a Concacaf Gold Cup and two editions of the now-defunct Confederations Cup. His club career spanned the world, from Chivas to Manchester United, Real Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen, West Ham United, Sevilla and LA Galaxy.

“He’s such an amazing finisher, and that’s a skill that you can take with you. We think at our level, he’ll still be incredibly competitive,” Brian Corcoran, Atlético’s sporting director, told The Athletic. “We’re a football club, and part of that is putting our best foot forward for our supporters and competing on the field — and something since day one that we feel Javi can help us do is compete.

“There’s a lot of other things he offers us in a changing room, like mentoring young players, which we want to attract top young players in this country. I can’t wait to see us on the grass (playing matches). Between now and then it’s going to be a madhouse, but that’s when the real moment starts for me.”

Hernández was a regular scorer in Europe for clubs including Manchester United and (above) Real Madrid (Gonzalo Arroyo Moreno/Getty Images)

Atlético Dallas begins its inaugural season in the USL Championship, the second tier of club soccer in the United States, one rung below MLS, in 2027, playing home games at the Texas city’s famous 92,000-capacity Cotton Bowl stadium.

In February, the club unveiled former France international Peter Luccin as first-team manager. With Hernández, the team now has its first player, but there is plenty that still needs to get done. The club is close to signing three additional players, Corcoran said, and is eager for the expected surge in interest that it envisions will come from a big-name arrival like Chicharito.

For Hernández, the biggest draw is the opportunity to build something new in Dallas, already home to MLS side FC Dallas, where he hopes to plant his roots for years to come. He envisions a club that can help grow the game of soccer in the United States, and even tap into younger generations’ potential in Mexico, where he sees gaps that offer opportunities. He is looking forward to seeing what he can build in Dallas, a city that he says has “embraced me”.

“It’s gonna be a place where I’m gonna have something that is gonna make me come back, regardless of when I’m gonna retire,” Hernández said. “It’s very, very important for me that I’m gonna be playing my last years over here with them, and in the way that it’s gonna happen, in the way that I envision and they envision.

“I hope the people in the USL as well can see the last part of Chicharito, Javier Hernandez, y’know, with Atlético Dallas. The franchise wants to become one of the best in the USL, and then, you never know in the future what could happen — because I think Dallas, like in Los Angeles, deserves to have two teams in the MLS, sooner or later. Why not Atlético Dallas?”

But the one thing he looks forward to most?

“Play(ing) football again,” he says. “What I love to do the most since I came to this world is playing football.

“If everything goes in the way that we envision, I think the league is going to grow. This team is going to grow, and I’m gonna have so much fun, and hopefully I can give good performances — a lot of goals, win games, have a very good chapter with this team and this organization.”