Emilio Flores for The New York Times

TIJUANA, Mexico — The American left back Edgar Castillo has done a little more packing than he would like the past few years.

Even he has to pause when he recalls all the loan stops he has made in Mexico since 2009 while Club América owned his contract but did not have much interest in seeing the Las Cruces, N.M.-born player in its yellow-and-blue uniforms.

All the moving left Castillo yearning for a place to call home.

“I was going all over, but I needed to stay at a club at least for a year, more than a year,” he said.

Now he has found that home. His fourth loan, this one to Club Tijuana, will be a more permanent stop for Castillo and his family. The club elected to buy the player’s contract this summer after he became a regular for the team in the 2012 Clausura.

“The first months when I came here, everyone said, ‘Castillo? Oh, Castillo, he’s been all over Mexico,’ ” he said. “I had a good season, and now people love me here.”

The locals’ embrace of Castillo follows a rise in the popularity of the club. The red-and-black logo featuring the team’s Xoloitzcuintli logo (a Mexican hairless dog, whose name is often mercifully shortened to Xolo when referring to the club) is ubiquitous in the windows of the storefronts and taco shops that dot the border town’s neighborhoods. Numerous cars and taxis on both sides of the border bear the logo on bumper stickers. One self-proclaimed Chivas fan taunted his Xolo-loving friends by saying the club belonged in the second division, but he later copped to having a Xolo sticker on his vehicle.

This attention is remarkable considering it comes for a club celebrating its fifth anniversary and entering only its third tournament in the top Mexican division. Thanks to Mexico’s convoluted promotion and relegation system — which heavily favors bigger, more established clubs — falling a division is, as the Chivas fan alluded, a pervading worry for Castillo and the club.

A successful campaign in the Clausura that saw Tijuana make the playoffs has assuaged some fears of the drop. Still, the club, owned

by the Mexican gambling giant Grupo Caliente, needs to stay in the top division to continue its growth, which includes a stadium expansion already underway and hopes of becoming a mainstay of Mexican soccer.

“Well, we got off to a good start,” said Castillo, who started and played 62 minutes before making way for his fellow Mexican-American Greg Garza in Tijuana’s 2-0 season-opening victory against Puebla on Friday. “Three points at home, a win. For us, we have to pick those points up not to go down to the second division.”

Many fans at Estadio Caliente tabbed the attack-minded Castillo, along with the American midfielder Joe Corona and the streaky Colombian forward Duvier Riascos, as key parts to the Xolo’s success in the coming season after the off-season departures of the leading scorer José Sand and the key defensive midfielder Egídio Arévalo Ríos.

But that is not to say Castillo has always felt the love in Mexico. Castillo played for the Mexican national team in friendlies and

represented its youth team before a FIFA rule change allowed him to switch his international allegiance to the United States in 2009. He still hears chants of “traidor” in opposing stadiums and even at times in the United States.

“Here in Tijuana not many people say that,” he said of the taunt, which is Spanish for traitor. “Once I go to San Diego, something like

that, there’s Mexicans there that say that.”

Castillo, 25, however, is not shying away from the North American soccer rivalry. “We have a game coming up against Mexico in the Azteca,” he said of an Aug. 15 friendly between the two national teams in Mexico City. “I want to get called up for that.”

He is aware he will have to keep improving with Tijuana and making the best of opportunities with the national team when they come. Fabian Johnson, who Castillo says is “very good,” seems to have the inside track on the left back position.

Castillo does not consider himself a good defender, he said, but he is working on that aspect of his game in hopes of achieving his goals — both with the Xolos and with the national team.

In the most recent U.S. camp, Castillo was pressed into service after a prematch injury rendered Johnson unavailable for a friendly with Canada. Castillo played 90 minutes of the 0-0 draw but later sustained an injury. A hamstring problem kept Castillo out of the squad for two subsequent World Cup qualifiers and deprived Castillo of a chance at making a stronger in-game impression on United States Coach Jurgen Klinsmann and his staff.

That has not stunted Castillo’s aspirations, though. Becoming a regular with the national team is one of his biggest goals, he said, and from there he has aspirations of getting noticed by even larger audiences.

“I’m trying to go to the World Cup now,” he said. “Get there, try to go somewhere else. If not, I’ll stay here in Mexico.”

For now, though, Castillo is plenty content staying where he is — this time for longer than six months.

Jon Arnold is a freelance journalist based in Phoenix. Follow him on Twitter.