Fresno-born U.S. men’s national team call-up Max Arfsten has worked hard to burst through the many doors required to reach the level of career success he’s had so far. But his journey began with a relatively easy door to enter: the unlocked fence to Keith Tice Memorial Park.

Arfsten will be one of three California-born American players to suit up in Los Angeles on Friday when the United States begins its World Cup campaign against Paraguay. But unlike his other two fellow Golden State teammates, Haji Wright (Los Angeles) and Cristian Roldan (Pico Rivera), he’s the only one not from SoCal, representing the Central Valley.

Before his first World Cup selection, his first USMNT cap, his first MLS All-Star honor and even his first time truly leaving California, Arfsten was a kid who grew up on the north side of Fresno and had a dream of playing soccer at the highest level. When he was about 9 years old, he began to follow that dream more seriously, spending much of his time at the park’s soccer field. While the fence alongside North Millbrooke Avenue has a sign that reads, “Use of athletic facilities prohibited without written approval of the facilities department,” Arfsten regularly used the field to practice, although he didn’t experience much resistance.

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“The landscapers, I guess, they never kicked me off,” Arfsten told SFGATE from the U.S. team’s training camp last week. “They’d let me train, touch the ball. I was there a lot, honestly, like all the time in Fresno … I’m thankful that they never kicked me off.”

Street view of Keith Tice Memorial Park in Fresno, Calif.

Perhaps those landscapers saw early signs of what boys soccer coach Randy Prescott saw when Arfsten arrived at San Joaquin Memorial High School just a few years later, after playing for years at the park, in physical six-on-six pick-up matches at Fresno Indoor and at a youth soccer club called California Odyssey. 

“When he stepped on campus for the first tryouts for the soccer team, he was a little guy — probably 120 soaking wet, maybe — but his technical ability stuck out right away,” Prescott told SFGATE in a phone call last week. “Between playing and coaching, I’ve seen pretty much everything you can see in the game of soccer, and you can just kind of see when someone’s special, you know, someone that’s got that it factor, and I saw it right away with him.”

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