SAFC’s star is tickled pink to score goals for you

Billy Forbes plays hungry.

That’s both a fact and metaphor.

In a caloric sense, the San Antonio FC forward won’t eat for hours before a match, if he eats at all on game day.

“It helps me focus,” he said of hunger. “It keeps my mind on the game.”

And that leads us to the metaphorical sense of the word, where the 26-year-old Turks and Caicos native attacks the goal like an Atkins Diet refugee let loose in a panadería.

Take, for example, the turn of events that began at the 11:30 mark in SAFC’s home match against Phoenix Rising FC on Saturday night.

In the constant ebb and flow of a soccer match, teams are always battling to control the ball and put their players in the right place at the same time to begin an attack.

SAFC was in that process when Forbes was mauled by a Phoenix defender at midfield. An official was standing 10 feet away, and Forbes expected a call.

Denied.

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The official shrugged his shoulders and somewhere deep inside Forbes’ 5-foot-10, 165-pound frame, a voice angrily cried out: “I want cake. Feed me.”

Five seconds later, teammate Devin Vega took the ball back and hit Forbes in stride with a pass.

It was time for Forbes to feast.

The defense appeared to be playing at half speed. and Forbes weaved through that side of the field. Two Phoenix players ran at Forbes. He left them behind with a burst of speed that caused them to collide.

Two more Phoenix players awaited him at the top of the penalty area. Forbes drew them in, then split the pair with a lead pass to the streaking Kris Tyrpak on his right, who then fed Akwafei Ajeakwa in front of the goal for the score. It would be the only goal in a 1-0 SAFC win.

Ajeakwa and Tyrpak got the goal and assist, respectively, in the box score. Without Forbes, however, they wouldn’t have gotten squat. Forbes, whose name isn’t in the stats for the play, had the important hockey-like assist that made it possible. Sadly, soccer isn’t hockey.

Forbes, who returned to San Antonio this season after a year playing in Oklahoma City, was happy to be back in his adopted hometown. However, he wasn’t sure about his new club.

That didn’t last for long.

“After we played our first game, I knew we had something special,” he said.

At 8-0-2, San Antonio is the United Soccer League’s best team. The second-year club leads the USL in defense and ranks third in attacking, with a league-leading goal differential of 16.

Although the team’s back line has been superb by allowing only four goals, Forbes has had a big hand — or maybe a foot — in the team’s success.

Forbes ranks third in the 30-team USL with six goals. He and teammate Caesar Elizondo are tied for fourth in assists.

This shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Forbes has been playing the game since he was a kid on his church team on his native island. Forbes was so good, the nation’s soccer federation picked him for the national team when he was 16.

He came to America to play soccer at Western Texas College in the remote outpost of Snyder. He went from there to Lubbock Christian University and, in his junior year, tried out for and made the San Antonio Scorpions’ roster.

All is good with Forbes. He’s been dating Michelle Hogan, a player with San Antonio Athenians SC , since his first stint in town with the now-defunct Scorpions of the NASL. That makes Forbes-Hogan San Antonio’s Soccer Power Couple, I guess.

After a church-sponsored mission trip to Haiti, the pair hit upon the idea to create Me Clothing Line, which sells shirts with positive slogans (Love Yourself) and donates 20 percent of its profits to charitable causes.

The Spurs’ organization — the mothership of the Rampage, Stars and SAFC — makes a point of finding guys such as this. Be it Sophia Young, Tim Duncan, David Robinson or Rafa Castillo, they find the star athletes who are good role models, understand the city and get it.

Forbes is yet another in that mold.

When asked about coming back to S.A., his personal life and his career, Forbes couldn’t conceal his happiness.

“I love San Antonio,” he said, smiling broadly and shaking his head, as if disbelieving his good luck. “I love San Antonio so much. It’s such a great city.”

San Antonio markets itself as “#OurClub” on social media, but with a team full of guys like Forbes, it becomes more than marketing.

rbragg@express-news.net

Twitter: @roybragg