Portland Hearts of Pine midfielder Mikey Lopez quickly endeared himself to fans in the club’s inaugural season. They loved his relentless work ethic and inspiring comeback story after overcoming career-threatening injuries, and then they watched as he made a genuine connection with Maine through his community service.
When Lopez announced his retirement Monday, fans and fellow players, both current and those from his 14-year career, made it clear how grateful they were to him. His Instagram page has been an outlet for the thanks and love people have for Lopez. The Hearts’ Beat covered the news of his retirement, and readers asked what more we could publish about it. So we turned our interview with Lopez into a Q&A because there’s so much more that he spoke about that we could not fit into a story.
We hope you enjoy this. We certainly enjoyed the privilege of speaking with him.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited lightly for length and clarity.
Q: You have had some injury issues this season. Is this decision because of your knees?
A: Yeah, it’s a big reason, for sure. My body hasn’t been feeling the way that it should be, and it has been hindering me and my ability to play the way I want to play. It’s just frustrating. I think it’s just my body telling me that it’s time.
Q: Well, it’s nice that you get to make that decision yourself.
A: Yeah, exactly. I think that was a big thing for me, and why I try to play as much as I could after my Achilles. That was the determining factor, and that was my determination and my goal: to be able to come back from my Achilles and play and be able to go out on my own terms, and not have it be taken away from me for an injury. So, it’s bittersweet, because I’m able to call it time on my own, but it just sucks that it’s ending this way, with my body failing me at this point.
Q: When you look back on 14 years as a professional, what’s the moment you’ll replay most often?
A: I think the draft is something that is always gonna be on my mind. But that first time stepping onto Yankee Stadium with New York, and the game last year, our first home game as a club against Naples in May, that’ll always play on my mind.
So it’s three big moments in my career that are big staples because of the nature of my career. The beginning, with the draft. New York, my first home game in New York. Even my debut was the first game of the season. That was like a restart of my career. And then here, because it’s the second restart of my career, after my big Achilles injury. So those are three moments that will always stick out for me.
Q: You first met Hearts coach Bobby Murphy at St. Stephen’s Episcopal School in Austin, Texas, when you were 13. What has it meant to you to finish your career playing for him?
A: Honestly, a dream come true. I didn’t think it would be possible, but I’m thankful that it is, because Bobby has always been another father figure for me. I love that guy so much, and to be able to be coached by him when I was young, and then again now as a professional and as a man, it means the world to me. To be able to finish my career with him here as my coach is the perfect ending for my playing career.
Q: After a year out with the two surgeries, you told your wife after a game here, “I forgot how fun this is.” What made Portland feel that way?
A: It’s just the people. Honestly, the people, the players, the intensity of the fans, the amount of support that they had for us. It just felt like a family, and I think that’s the biggest thing that, as a soccer player, you’re always searching for. You’re searching for a place where you feel like a family, where you feel like it’s a home, and I had found that here, again. It just makes things so much better and so much more fun.
After going through such a long year of 2024, of not playing and not being able to contribute in any way, and just seeing everything from afar, getting that taste and feeling back when I got here last year was just the best case of everything. It was just a culmination of everything. I was thankful that I was here, and like I said, it was really fun. Last year was extremely fun, so I’m thankful for that.
Q: You’ve been a club’s first captain twice, in Birmingham and here. What do you hope players say about the culture you helped build here in Portland?
A: I hope that people will say that this is a hard-working team, and it’s a humble team as well. It’s a team that doesn’t take anything for granted and will work their asses off every minute of every game, every single day of training. I just hope that I left that legacy that no matter where you’re from or what you come from, you gotta work hard every single day and make the best out of everything.
I’m sure that’ll continue, especially with having Bobby and the rest of the front office and staff. I’m sure they’ll do a great job with the future teams and future players, and I’m sure they’ll keep that culture going. But hopefully anybody that has seen me and played with me or played against me will have that same sentiment, that I was a hardworking person and I was a warrior every single day, and I fought and played for every game like it was my last. Hopefully that’ll stick around for years to come.
Q: Your first and only Hearts goal came in a comeback win over FC Naples back in July. Take me back through that moment.
A: It was a special moment, for many reasons. Obviously, getting that goal, first goal for my time here, after going so many years without scoring a goal, was a big burden off my shoulders. And also, so I wouldn’t have to hear Bobby say that he’s never seen me score a goal, so I got that monkey off my back as well.
That goal is special because it was also the last time my grandpa saw me play and score. He passed away, like, two days after. So it’s something that I’ll always remember and I’ll always think about, and it’s something that is extremely special, not just for the player side, but for the personal side as well. It was a special moment.
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to make more out of it for the season, but it was good, because it showed the fight that we have as a team. Things haven’t gone our way for most of this year.
Q: From North Carolina to Sporting KC and every stop since, which teammate or coach shaped you the most, and how did they do that?
A: People always ask me who are my favorite coaches, and I always had Bobby in there, even before I had him as a coach here. He was always one of the best coaches I’ve had. And the other coach would probably be... well, not probably, it’ll definitely be Patrick Vieira. He helped me a lot during my time in New York, and he put a lot of things in perspective as well. It’s funny hearing it from him, because he’s won everything and he’s such a legend of the game, but he reminded me that soccer’s supposed to be fun, and at the end of the day, it is a game. So we have to enjoy it. We have to enjoy our life as a player, but we have to enjoy our lives, just our lives, because soccer is just a game, and we gotta go do stuff to make that part better, you know? I learned a lot from him, and I think he’s one of the best coaches I’ve had, because he taught me a lot about on-the-field stuff. He’s up there for me.
The other one is Bobby, just because he’s an amazing person. I’ve learned so much from him growing up and now as a player. But I think the most important thing that I’ve learned from him is that he cares about us as people more so than just as players. I think that’s extremely important as a coach, because you have to understand your players as people and know what makes each person tick. His biggest attribute is that he really understands a lot of players, and he’s a great manager of people. I’ve learned a lot from Bobby.
Q: Patrick Vieira started you ahead of Frank Lampard in New York City FC’s 2016 playoff opener. You got to play with Andrea Pirlo (He also got to play with Spanish star David Villa but we forgot to mention him!) What’s it like to be 23 in a locker room with those guys, and on the pitch with those guys?
A: It was an amazing experience. They’re honestly even greater people than they are soccer players, which is really hard to imagine, because they are legends of the game, all three of them. They were just really great people. They spoke to all of us, and they gave us all good words of advice, and they helped us all a lot through navigating the media circus of being in New York. I would have never thought I would be playing with them, and it was just such a cool time.
It’s where I played some good soccer, and it’s where I enjoyed my life a lot more. Like I said in my video, it rejuvenated my career and my love for the game, and they played a big part in that. So it was an amazing experience. It was kind of a once in a lifetime experience, and I’m thankful that I was able to experience that and be able to say that I was able to play with legends of the game and being coached by another. It was cool. And then seeing where all of them are at now, it’s like, yeah, I played with that guy. He played with me, and he’s a coach of so-and-so team. A super cool thing to do.
Q: Your parents both came to the U.S. as children, and about two months ago you gave the keynote address at the Maine Immigration Forum, at a time when few pro athletes speak publicly on the issue. Why was it important to use your voice, and what do you hope people in Maine take from your family’s story?
A: I think it’s important for professional athletes to use their platform, because a lot of people don’t have the platforms that we have. We’re fortunate enough to do what we do and have a bigger platform than most, and we gotta shed light on things that happen to other people, and not that just happen to us personally. We can shed light on what’s going on in the world, on people that are going through things, and if people don’t hear them, at least they can hear us speaking about those things. So I think it’s important.
For me, I just wanted to share my story, share that I am like a lot of people that live in the States that are first-generation born Americans, that have families that are immigrants. I know my story is not unique, but I just want people to know that they can make it in whatever they want to do, that no dream is impossible, and that we are extremely fortunate that our parents did the things that they did for us, for us to have a better life. I hope that people in Maine and kids in Maine can see me as a success story and as a kid like them, and see the things that I’m doing, and see them as not impossible, and that everything is possible.
Q: You won the club’s first Lead With Your Heart Community Award. What part of your work off the field are you proudest of?
A: Everything that the club does is amazing. I just wanted to be a steward of that. I just wanted to immerse myself in the community, and the best way to do that is just being a part of it. Going to speak to kids in middle school and just showing them that their dreams aren’t impossible, again. I think that’s really cool.
I think the best way to buy into a club is through the community. If you can immerse yourself in the community, you have a better understanding, a better devotion or passion for the club and for the people that you’re trying to represent, and you have a better understanding of who you’re trying to represent. Being able to speak to the kids, and being able to just be around the people of Maine, you get a better understanding of what it means to be a Mainer and what it means to be a supporter of the Hearts of Pine, and I take that and I use that every single time I step onto the field.
The one memory I have from my time doing a lot of our community outreach things was talking to a little girl. I guess she’s little, but she was in middle school at the time, and she was telling me how she is Mexican-American as well, and she asked me, ‘what does it feel like being Mexican and not being close to your people? You’re kind of a fish out of water over here. How does that make you feel, and how do you navigate that?’ And I just told [her], ‘I am proud to be Mexican-American, and I’m proud to be somewhere where maybe there’s not a lot of us here, but we can show them what it is to be a Mexican-American, and have people understand our culture, our ways of thinking, and show them the best things about being a Mexican, and that sometimes things in media are not really portrayed like that.’
It was just nice being able to talk to her and speak about our shared experiences being here, her obviously living here more than I did. I think that was just such a cool thing, and it’s something that I’ll always remember during my time here with the Hearts and doing our community outreach stuff.
Q: What comes next for you, and what excites you most about it?
A: I think the exciting part is that I don’t know. I want to get into coaching, so I hope that’s the pathway that I want to go. So it’s just seeing where it takes me. It’d be amazing if I could get something here, but I don’t know if that’ll happen, so we’ll see. If it’s not here, then I gotta start looking elsewhere and see where I land. I think that’s the exciting part, is that it’s just, we’ll see what happens, and hopefully I can find something in coaching and start my coaching career. I hope not to move around so much, but if it happens, it happens. So we’ll see what happens, but that’s the goal.
Q: What do you hope fans feel at Fitzpatrick on Saturday, and what would you like to say to them?
A: Well, I hope that they enjoy the game. I hope that we can win one more time for them, because they stuck with us through thick and thin, and there’s been a lot of thin moments this year, and they never left us. They’ve always stuck with us, and so I hope that that’s the feeling we can have one more time together. I want them to know that I’m appreciative of everything that they’ve done for me, and for the team, and for the club, for always supporting us, and traveling every which way, every corner of this country, and always being there for us, and being passionate for the club, and for us, for me.
What I want to tell them is that I am extremely grateful and thankful for everything they’ve done. But I also wanna apologize for this year. It didn’t go the way that we all envisioned. It didn’t go the way I envisioned, personally. I wasn’t able to help out as much. I know that the team is extremely disappointed with how the season went, but I just want to personally apologize for how it went, that we weren’t able to bring them as much success as they wanted, and we weren’t able to achieve our goals that we wanted either.
So I just want to apologize to them for that. But as I said, I’m extremely grateful for them and thankful for them, because they’ve never left our side, and I’m looking forward to having one more game together, and hopefully I don’t cry! Hopefully they don’t cry, and I just hope that it’ll just be one fun party, one last party together. That’s how I envision Saturday, and hopefully it comes to fruition, but we’ll see.
Q: Results don’t always work out the way that we want them to. But you guys never stopped fighting. You personally, it was very clear, never stopped fighting. You gave everything you could.
A: Well, thank you. But I still feel that way. I appreciate your kind words, and hopefully everyone thinks that as well. But that’s part of the bittersweet part as well. It didn’t go the way we wanted it to go, and I feel terrible that we weren’t able to bring the success that we had last year, and the success that they deserve as well. It’s tough, but it’s part of the business, it’s part of soccer, and it’s part of the game. I’m sure everyone will learn from this, and hopefully we won’t have another season like this again. Silver linings, I guess.
Lopez will play his final match Saturday vs. the Charlotte Independence at Fitzpatrick Stadium.
