FRISCO -- Luchi Gonzalez liked soccer before it was cool.

At heart, Gonzalez is a soccer hipster. Growing up in Miami and learning the game from his Peruvian father, a young Luchi wasn't focused on the biggest stars in the sport.

Instead, the coach, who will make his debut on the professional level Saturday when FC Dallas hosts the New England Revolution, was locked in on Argentina's biggest sports channel, dreaming of one day playing in the Copa Libertadores.

"I watched a lot of TyC. I followed River. River was my team when I was young, but it was hard to not like Boca as well with the players they had at their time and the culture and their stadium, the Bombonera. I followed Argentine soccer when I was a young player," Gonzalez said. "Boca and River were the two clubs I had with players that I idolized.

"The youth team I played for, Strike Force, we were all from Central or South American backgrounds, so we were big on chanting and singing. That was a big part of me. That was my upbringing."

After four seasons at SMU and several years as a well-traveled pro player, Gonzalez transitioned into coaching. He draws his tactical ideas from all over the map, but still has a habit of watching more obscure matches than the average soccer fan.

Rather than digging deep on how super teams like Manchester City are playing in the UEFA Champions League, Gonzalez has been keeping a close eye on Quique Setien's Real Betis as the mid-sized Spanish club qualified for the Europa League, UEFA's second-tier competition.

Those concepts are more relevant to his new job, anyway. FCD doesn't have the talent of a team like Man City or Barcelona. Yet, Gonzalez doesn't see that as any excuse for his squad to play boring soccer.

He wants his team to play a style focused on possession, though he's taken pains to note that there will be times when FCD will score from a long ball over the top as well.

"The priority is the ball, and the priority is time and space. There are going to be moments where as much as we want the ball, we're going to struggle to get it or to keep it for consecutive moments," he said. "But we're going to embrace that struggle and train so that we can weather that struggle and get into a moment where we can have our priorities in play -- numbers and the ball, manipulating space and time to create opportunities around the opponents' goal."

Music man

He is obsessed with the game, making time for few things aside from soccer, family and one other passion -- music. In this element, Gonzalez also falls into the hipster category.

"I used to make electronic music when I was in college. I didn't perform, I just made my own songs. I was big into different ambient (artists) like Aphex Twin," he said. "I loved Moby.

"He became pretty popular at some point, and then I lost interest. But when he was underground, I was a big fan."

Gonzalez claims he never released any of his music, and if he created a DJ name for himself he wouldn't divulge it. Now, rather than getting out the synthesizer, sequencer and drum pad he hooked to his cassette player, he sticks to catching the occasional live show around town with his wife. While his musical past has been kept a secret, those close to him weren't stunned by the revelation.

"We'll be traveling somewhere, and he'll put on the Bluetooth and turn on music and sometimes it's pretty ... odd," said Chris Hayden, vice president of FC Dallas youth. "He knows it very well and sings along with it. He obviously has this closet music taste that I'm not sure about."

The hipster stereotype falls short when it comes to an expected aloofness. During his time as academy director, Gonzalez showed comfort around his coaching peers, around developing players and around their often demanding parents.

"He's caring. He wants to interact with players, with staff in a positive way. I don't want to say he over-prepares, but he prepares very much -- not just what's expected but even in the unexpected. He's never surprised by things. He's meticulous," Hayden said. "He's a positive person. He believes in himself. I think he believes in the people he's around.

"I think he's confident, and this is not an easy job to be confident in. You're always only as good as your last result, but he has the tools you need to be a head coach."

Those tools came through early on, but former FC Dallas coach Schellas Hyndman said he noticed a difference in Gonzalez when his former player came on with the club as an academy coach.

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Desire to improve

Hyndman remembered Gonzalez as a confident, well-liked young man at SMU. Those personality traits were still there when Hyndman brought him into the academy setup after Oscar Pareja left to become the Colorado Rapids head coach. But there was an added focus in Gonzalez to become a successful manager.

"The change came from a never-ending desire to get better," said Hyndman, who now is the coach at Grand Canyon University. "In the academy, I saw that he was hungry. He kept surrounding himself with people of influence, whether myself or other coaches."

Hyndman recommended Gonzalez for a coaching course in France, thanks to an MLS partnership with the French Football Federation, and said Gonzalez threw himself into his coaching education despite a rigorous schedule with his duties in the academy. That's no surprise for someone Hayden said was "trying to be a sponge" from the moment he arrived at FCD.

Now it's time for Gonzalez to put that knowledge into practice. There will be a learning curve, but Gonzalez has been preparing for this moment for years. Now is the time to buy stock in the young coach. If he blows up, you can say you knew about him before he got big.