In many ways, Arquimides Ordonez is the personification of the FC Cincinnati dream.
When Ordonez, the 17-year-old forward nicknamed “Quimi," became the second FCC academy product to sign a pro deal with the club on July 2, he also became the first academy product born in Cincinnati and raised in the Greater Cincinnati region to go pro with FCC.
Unlike goalkeeper and teammate Beckham Sunderland, who signed the first pro deal out of the academy, Ordonez was a ticket-holding fan for some of the club's greatest moments in the early years of FCC.
"I went to one of their first-ever preseason games at Xavier's campus (in 2016)," Ordonez told The Enquirer. "I’ve always been interested in FCC. It’s a pro team in the city. I didn’t know it was going to be an MLS team, though, but I’ve watched and gone to so many games... The Chicago Fire (Open Cup) game, everyone was chanting ‘Mitch says no’ and (Hildebrandt) had a couple saves” in the penalty shootout.
To go from a fan in the Nipper Stadium grandstands to now bearing the Orange and Blue kit of FC Cincinnati, and receiving a paycheck to earn a living from the club – that's what some of the club's founding fathers imagined for FC Cincinnati when it was introduced as a third-division expansion club in August 2015.
"It’s incredible. I’m really from here and to be on the team, playing for the team, it’s mind-blowing because I’m young because I always thought I could go pro and I thought I’d be in a good position but I didn’t know I was going to play for my hometown club," Ordonez said. "That’s, like, dreaming.”
The path from genuine, homegrown Cincinnati-region prospect to signing an MLS Homegrown contract with FC Cincinnati wasn't easily forged.
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Just prior to the start of FC Cincinnati’s 2021 preseason, a handful of the club’s top academy prospects were called in to participate in first-team training sessions. Some even traveled for a preseason-training sojourn to Orlando in what represented a considerable opportunity for those involved.
While he was highly thought of in the academy, Ordonez wasn't one of the club amateur prospects chosen to participate.
Ordonez supported his academy teammates in their respective first-team opportunities while also maintaining a healthy amount of envy.
"Honestly, I definitely was mad initially but I trusted my ability. I know how good I am," Ordonez said. "I know that everything happens for a reason and I want to be there when I’m doing my best… I don’t want to be there if they don’t think I’m ready. I want to control as many things as I can. I started to just not concern myself with ‘well, I wish I’d been called up.’ I was like, if I do get called up, I want to be ready. I want to put everything on the line and I have no regrets. That would be the worst thing, if I got called up, played bad, got sent back and it’d be like ‘wow, I just talked all this but I wasn’t really good an now I’m back with my academy team.’"
Ordonez finally received the call to join the first team, which he did for the first time on April 8.
That day, the session under head coach Jaap Stam was a light one, but Ordonez was still admittedly nervous. But by his third day in the first team on April 10, Ordonez's nerves had settled.
After watching FC Cincinnati lose to Pittsburgh Riverhounds in FCC's final preseason tuneup at the Mercy Health Training Center, Ordonez and other players that didn't play in the scrimmage participated in small-sided matches.
That's when Ordonez proved to himself he belonged, and that he could earn a professional contract with the club.
“We played, like, six versus six. My team was down by three goals and I scored four goals in a row," Ordonez said. "Right then I was like, ‘yeah, OK, I can do this.’ … that’s when I knew I was ready."
Since then, Ordonez hasn't been shy about letting his more-veteran teammates know that he belonged.
Asked about the recent signing of Ordonez during a July 7 interview, FC Cincinnati designated player Luciano Acosta immediately smiled at the first mention of "Quimi."
Acosta's smile was then followed by laughter during his response as he conveyed sentiments about Ordonez's well-known confidence.
"When he's in training, he's really good and a young man, he has a lot of faith in himself and wants to play," Acosta said via a team interpreter. "Even at some points, we made me annoyed because he does some things that are really good on the pitch, but he's a quality guy."
The day of the signing
After FC Cincinnati defeated Toronto FC June 26 in Orlando, team General Manager Gerard Nijkamp flew to the Dallas region for the MLS Next Cup Playoffs where Ordonez was playing with the academy's Under-19 team.
Ordonez knew Nijkamp was present but wasn't bothered by it, and he wasn't expecting to be presented with a pro contract in the team's hotel lobby after their tournament run ended in defeat.
"Any time a coach is watching you or a GM is watching you, I have enough pride in myself that I’m never really gonna have a bad game," Ordonez said. "(Gerard) came, he watched, but I didn’t know I was signing pro or anything like that so for the time being, I was just focused on my team and trying to get as far as I could. The other stuff can come after but at that moment I was just focused on my U-19 team."
Then came the hotel lobby, where Ordonez was still stewing over the U19 team's loss to the Colorado Rapids academy.
In fact, Ordonez was still lamenting the academy-tournament loss days later when he spoke to The Enquirer July 6 – after he'd became a professional and later dressed for FC Cincinnati's first team in an eventual 1-1 draw against Houston Dynamo FC at BBVA Stadium on July 3.
Ordonez entered a private meeting room where he found as many as nine individuals waiting for him, including Nijkamp, who first joked around with Ordonez and then told him he'd done well in the tournament.
That's when the second Homegrown contract in FC Cincinnati history was offered.
"I tried to act really serious. Like, I didn't smile or anything like that," Ordonez said. "I was like, 'Oh, OK.' It was bittersweet because we'd just lost... I was still mad about that but it was like at least this is something I can be happy for."
From there, the standard-issue celebratory activities – calls to family and friends, playfully convincing skeptics that the news was, in fact, true, and so on – commenced.
And now, Ordonez is on his way in his professional career.
He's trained with FC Cincinnati over the last two weeks since signing his contract. Two matches have passed since the Homegrown deal was signed and no appearance has resulted for Ordonez, but with is uncommon confidence, he's surely targeting a debut appearance for FCC in the near future.
The FC Cincinnati is about to enter its third year in operation, and it's produced two players on Homegrown contracts. More will come, but Ordonez has carved out the path for Greater Cincinnati youth prospects that want to represent the club they've grown up around.
"Nothing was ever gifted. That's the best way to get it," he said. "This is business now. I want to make the most of it. I have dreams."
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