On a misty Wednesday afternoon, Jorge Villafana sat on a bench at the Portland Timbers training facility and gazed out at the empty soccer fields around him. It had been drizzling for most of the morning, but now a few rays of sunlight snuck through the foggy sky.

Half an hour before, Villafana had been sprinting up and down the wing, fiercely competing for possession and whipping crosses into the box during a small-sided scrimmage.

That grit is what helped the 25-year-old elevate himself from being barely able to crack the 18-player game-day roster at the beginning of last season to solidifying his spot as a key starter for the Timbers by the end of last year.

Even with his starting spot secured, Villafana has continued to arrive at the training facility each day with the same tenacious will to fight for his place on the field.

He's never taken his career as a professional soccer player for granted. It's easy for him to remember how close he came to never living out this dream.

* * *

In 1990, Juanita Villafana made the decision to move her one-year-old son Jorge away from his birthplace of Anaheim, California to Guanajuato, a state in the central part of Mexico. She had recently separated from her husband and thought it would be best to leave the United States and rejoin the rest of her family.

Like many other children in Mexico, Jorge Villafana, who went by Jorge Flores until he permanently changed his last name to honor his mother in 2011, spent his waking moments playing soccer with his cousins and neighbors in the streets of Penjamo, Guanajuato. The kids would break into teams of five and compete for hours on end. The ball never went out of bounds.

Jorge's talent was immediately evident. Neighbors would even stop Juanita in the streets, telling her that her son was destined for professional soccer.

"We played all the time," Villafana said. "I think soccer just became part of my life playing down in Mexico with my friends on the streets."

When Villafana turned seven, his mother made the difficult decision to leave her only son and return to the United States, taking a job at a textile factory, so that she could send money back to the family in Mexico. Villafana remained in Guanajuato under the care of his grandfather and aunt for the next eight years, but at the age of 15, he made the decision to leave Mexico.

"I decided to come to the U.S.," Villafana said. "I wanted to be here with my mom and have a better life. I came back to study and from there things happened."

* * *

Villafana spoke barely any English when he showed up at Anaheim High School for his junior year in 2005. His family and counselors recommended that he give himself some time to adjust before taking on a demanding extracurricular activity like varsity soccer.

He didn't pay them any heed.

"Soccer was my outlet," Villafana said. "That was where I met most of my friends. I think that was the thing that helped me adjust the most, getting into soccer."

Villafana shone on the field in high school and at tournaments with his club team in Santa Ana. He had always fantasized about playing professional soccer, but it was during this time that he started to really believe that he might be able to turn his dream into a reality.

So, early in his senior year, Villafana made the decision to attend an open tryout for former MLS club Chivas USA.

He arrived at the stadium brimming with confidence, but left without a spot on the team. The Chivas USA staff told a disappointed Villafana to keep practicing.

He quickly turned his focus back to his education and college applications. He started thinking about the possibility of attending nearby California State University, Fullerton.

Villafana wasn't on the radar of U.S. Soccer or any big-name college soccer programs. Professional clubs had never heard his name mentioned as a top-flight prospect.

But good fortune was on his side.

Announcements started popping up in local Spanish language magazines advertising a new reality television show called "Sueno MLS." Sueno is the Spanish word for dream. The winner of the show would get the opportunity to earn a contract with Chivas USA.

Villafana's uncle pestered him to try out for the show. He declined. He had already been rejected from Chivas USA once and didn't see the point of being rejected again. But his uncle was persistent.

"I didn't want to go," Villafana said. "But he told me, 'Just try out and see what happens.'"

* * *

Villafana finally wandered in on the last day of tryouts for "Sueno MLS."

They had already filled the 2,000 spots, but offered to add Villafana to the 4,000-person waitlist. As luck would have it, a spot opened up.

For the next month, the high school senior spent his weekends playing in short scrimmages at a nearby soccer complex. Each week, players would be eliminated. But Villafana kept getting called back.

At the end of the competition, he was the last one standing.

"It was the most thrilling thing in my life," said Juanita, through a translator. "I shouted. I felt a lot of joy. It was like a dream come true for him and for us... As his mom, I am the most proud person in the world for everything he has achieved."

After winning the reality show, Villafana became the youngest player on Chivas USA's under-19 team. Soon after, he joined the parent club for a tournament in Guadalajara, where he scored three goals and started getting offers from some top Mexican clubs. Chivas USA soon made the decision to offer the young midfielder a developmental contract with the first team. To this day, Villafana remains the only winner of Sueno to have earned an MLS contract.

"When I joined (MLS), you just didn't see kids from the streets come out and make it to the professional level," Villafana said. "I probably wasn't going to get noticed or even make it to the pros if it wasn't for Sueno."

Up until that point, U.S. Soccer hadn't known anything about Villafana. In recent years, the U.S. National Team program has made a concerted effort to expand their talent pool by identifying players, especially young Latinos, who have previously fallen under the radar. But, in Villafana's case, U.S. Soccer didn't take notice until after he signed with Chivas USA.

In 2007, Villafana was called into the U.S. U-20 National Team Camp for the first time. He proceeded to make 16 appearances and serve as team captain with the squad over the next two years.

In 2012, current Timbers head coach Caleb Porter, who was the head soccer coach at the University of Akron at the time, was assigned the task of coaching the U.S. U-23 National Team as the club attempted to qualify for the 2012 London Olympics.

Porter had never heard of Villafana, but his name popped up on a list of potential players and the young coach made the decision to call him into a U-23 camp.

"Honestly, I knew nothing about him," Porter said. "But, over time, I just started to like him. He just grows on you because he works hard everyday. He's scrappy, probably because he's had to fight for everything in his career."

* * *

In December of 2013, the Timbers sent center back Andrew Jean Baptiste to Chivas USA in exchange for Villafana and a draft pick that would allow them to acquire winger Steve Zakuani.

Most analysts assumed that Portland's primary motive in the trade had been to acquire Zakuani, a former standout player of Porter's at Akron. But Timbers general manager Gavin Wilkinson said the trade would never have happened if Villafana hadn't been part of it.

"That was like the sneaky, silent side of the whole deal," Porter said. "He was underrated in the league, but I knew him because I had him for five months with the U-23s."

When he played for Chivas USA, Villafana had always been only a short drive away from his mother and much of his close-knit extended family. Still, it didn't take too long for he and his wife Celina and daughter Arely, now two years old, to adjust to Portland. The couple's second daughter, Joyce, was born in 2014, not long after they made the move.

"The transition was a little bit difficult at first, but I got used to it real quickly," Villafana said. "Portland isn't that far from LA, so, when they have the chance, the rest of my family can still visit."

It took Villafana a bit longer to find his spot on the field. For the first 10 games of the 2014 season, he struggled to even break into the 18.

It was in May, when Timbers left back Michael Harrington injured his ankle during a game against the Columbus Crew, that Villafana finally got his opportunity to prove that he could contribute on the field.

"He just has an exceptional level of commitment and a level of honesty and a level of professionalism in how he goes about his work on a daily basis," Wilkinson said. "He's always a player that turns up to work hard. He came from nothing and he's overcome adversity to get to where he is today."

After making his first appearance for Portland, Villafana went on to start the next eight games and scored his first goal in a Timbers uniform to help Portland earn a 2-2 road draw with the Los Angeles Galaxy on July 4. Villafana, who was a winger until Porter converted him to a left back with the U-23s, added a new dimension to the Timbers attack with his knack at driving up the wing and whipping accurate crosses into the box.

"I like his balance as a player," Porter said. "As an outside back in this league, you need to be able to defend well, which he does, and then, obviously, when he gets forward he has the ability, because he was a winger and he's left sided, to provide width and to get crosses."

When a hamstring injury sidelined Villafana for a few weeks last July, Harrington once again took over the left back spot. But on August 30, in a road match against the Vancouver Whitecaps, Porter gave Villafana another chance in the starting 11.

Since then, he has become a fixture at left back.

In the waning moments of a recent match against Sporting Kansas City, Villafana sprinted into the box after midfielder Bernardo Anor, as he desperately tried to help his team preserve an important scoreless draw on the road. The two players jostled for position, until Villafana finally saw his opening. At the last moment, he slid into a tackle, booting the ball away to break up Kansas City's final push.

He was relentless. He doesn't know what it means to stop fighting.

"He's el sueno," Timbers defender Nat Borchers said. "He's the dream."

-- Jamie Goldberg | jgoldberg@oregonian.com

503-853-3761 | @jamiebgoldberg