Love on the pitch: A fun Q&A with KC soccer power couple Roger Espinoza and Lo LaBonta

Less than a month after it was announced that a National Women’s Soccer League team would be returning to Kansas City, Roger Espinoza went down on one knee and proposed to Lo LaBonta.

The return of Utah’s NWSL team to Kansas City meant KC NWSL midfielder LaBonta would be returning to Kansas City full-time.

It also meant that she would be reunited full-time with her then-longtime boyfriend Espinoza, who’s played for Sporting Kansas City for the majority of his career. The pair first met during LaBonta’s previous stint here before the franchise then known as FC Kansas City moved to Utah for the 2018 season.

The marriage proposal may have made them Kansas City’s soccer power couple, but their history predates their engagement in early January.

The Star sat down with the pair to learn more about their relationship, how they make each other better players and hear some fun stories from their past.

So how did you guys first meet?

Lo: “We definitely first met when you slid in my DM’s.”

Roger: “That’s not true! We met once and we didn’t meet again until a year later. So I don’t know if you really want to count that year when we didn’t hang out at all.

“And then Sydney (Leroux) and Dom (Dwyer), being the OG soccer power couple of Kansas City, we were always running into each other’s path. And that’s what happened, we were always hanging out and always around a lot of the places, then the conversation started there.”

Roger, what’s it like having Lo back in Kansas City?

Roger: “It’s great because when we first started dating she was always here in Kansas City; then she got to move to Salt Lake, and that was very difficult. We probably got to see each other once a month.

“Now we probably won’t get to see each other on the weekend because of schedules, but we get to see each other during the week. So that’s a lot better than traveling after you finish a game somewhere and you’ve got to travel to another city. Sometimes it wasn’t even in Salt Lake that we saw each other — it depended on what city we were in and what day we had off.

“It wasn’t easy but we made it work, and it happened to work out now even better.”

Do you guys get to see each other’s games?

Lo: “I would usually catch the first or second match before I had to report to preseason. But it’s funny, our schedules sometimes worked where we both played in Houston or something like that, so it was really cool. And any time I get to see him play, whether it’s on TV or in person, it’s an honor.”

Roger: “She doesn’t say these things to me at all.”

Lo: “He’s never heard me say that before!”

Have you made each other better players?

Lo: “(Former FCKC coach) Vlatko Andonovski, when I was here before in Kansas City — without even knowing Roger and I were dating — he said, ‘I want you to go to a Sporting game and I want you to watch this player and I want you to be like him, play like him, win every tackle.’ And in my head, I was like, ‘If he say Roger Espinoza, I’m walking out of this meeting.’

“But he did, and I think just watching him as a player, he does have this confidence out there and he does win almost every single ball and I think that style of play, that’s just grit. Now hopefully I can do that, maybe not with the red cards, but a little more technical too. And I use my right foot; he’s a lefty. I’ve definitely gotten better from watching him.”

Roger: “She did get a red card like the first weekend when Vlatko told her that. I didn’t think he was meaning the red card. But absolutely, when we trained during the quarantine we did a lot of passing drills and talked about games a lot and whatever that may be, you always end up catching the good things and talking about soccer, it just gets you to be a better player.”

Who would win in a 1v1, best of five?

Roger: “Five, I would win five.”

Lo: “Oh my God. See, 1v1 just going to little goals maybe, because he’d probably kill me first.”

Roger: “I’d just two-foot her.”

Lo: “He would just sweep my legs, take out my shins, and that’s how he would win.”

What if it was on a bigger field?

Lo: “I would chip him every time, for sure. And I would just keep him on his right foot.”

Roger: “It’ll be more like a challenge, it’ll be a little bit tougher. Lo is a lot more technical when it comes to that.”

Who spoils your dog, Chulo, more?

Roger: “Absolutely it’s Lo, not me. This guy has been spoiled since she moved here. For me, I’m the one who has to put him in his place a little bit. Overall he’s a good dog, but I think Lo spoils him the most, for sure.

“Sometimes he jumps on the bed. He’s not allowed to jump on the bed — he’s a little old now so he can fall really bad. Oh, he jumps on the coach too a bit, and I don’t like a lot of hair on the couch, especially in the summer months.”

Lo: “I think when he says that I spoil him more, I just tend to always be cuddling with him, petting him, playing with him. Like if the dog is crying and Roger will be like, ‘Be quiet!’ or ‘Chulo!’ just to quiet him down. And I’d be like, ‘Aww, my baby,’ and I’ll just go and cuddle him and give him love. Roger is trying to be alpha and Chulo is the tamest dog, so he never disciplines him. He just says, ‘Stop crying.’”

Roger: “She gives him a lot of treats too.”

What’s a fun or chaotic date you’ve been on?

Roger: “Fun date, there have been many. I would say here in Kansas City, when we first started dating, I just planned this day where we visited some of the breweries in town and then went to a baseball game. It was a long day, but it was a great day, and it was a great day in Kansas City. That kind of like cemented the relationship a bit, so some of those dates were some of the best ones here in KC.”

Lo: “And then mine would have to be, because in the offseason in one of the first years we were dating, I would go and play in Australia. Roger came out and visited and we made this little trip up to the Great Barrier Reef, but little did we know there was going to be a storm that day, so we had to take a boat out there. And every single person on the boat, including me — minus this guy — was just vomiting everywhere. Like, head in a trashcan, Roger just patting my back like, ‘It’s ok sweetie’ — vomit everywhere. And then we arrived at the Great Barrier Reef and the clouds just parted. Roger scuba dived, I snorkeled.

“So he just plopped in and I never knew if a shark was going to eat him or anything. I went out snorkeling and I went out way too far. Roger was back at the boat, and they were like, ‘Hey, who’s missing here?’ And Roger goes, ‘I think that’s my girlfriend out there.’ And they have to send a little boat out to get me and bring me back and it was all over the place.”

Did you see any sharks?

Lo: “I did!”

Roger: “I went probably 60 feet down and didn’t see one shark so I was kind of pissed off that I had the scuba diving certification and I didn’t see much of that. I was like ,‘How did you see a shark? I was down there and didn’t see anything.’ I saw Nemo, so that was a big thing.

“It was amazing and I would compare it to a soccer game — same adrenaline, you have to be very careful and make sure everything is in the right place in case of an emergency or anything. It’s just a rush of adrenaline and it’s beautiful down there. The first time I did it, it became like a sport to me. I want to do it all the time. Every time I go to some beach area I want to go scuba diving.”

Lo, how did Roger propose to you?

Lo: “There’s so much that went into it. Where he did it was at his old soccer buddy’s vineyard in California, in San Diego. I just thought we were going to just do some wine tasting and then my family was coming and there was just a lot going on that day. He came out with this beautiful ring, like ‘Hey, Lolita,’ and I was like, ‘What?!’

“People see the crazy red-card Roger on the field all the time and little do they know, he’s such a softie and very romantic. It was during sunset and everything in San Diego, it was beautiful. And everyone asked me, ‘Were you surprised?’ And he is a private person, so the fact that he did it in front of my family probably meant the world to my dad and obviously to me, too, because I’m getting engaged. It was beautiful ... the kid did well.”

Have you guys thought about life after soccer?

Roger: “It’s tough to think about it, but obviously you see yourself with a family and probably have 11 kids so we have a full soccer team. But ... playing soccer for such a long time, you like to think that you’ll be close to the game. It’s either working for a club or working something with soccer, and that’s how I see myself. And when we have kids, you obviously want them to play soccer too.”

Lo: “The Sporting players and their wives and girlfriends, they’re all having kids and they’re asking me, ‘When’s your guys’ gonna come around?’ And I’m like, ‘Unless Roger can have the kid, we’re not going to have kids anytime soon.’ That’s my career: I can’t just have a baby one weekend and then go play the next in Chicago. We obviously want kids — that’s for sure in the future.

“Maybe a lot more dogs, a donkey, a lot of plants.”

A donkey?

Lo: “I love donkeys. I actually love every single animal and I would probably have a lot more if I didn’t travel so much. But I think a cow would be nice ... Having property where we can just have a bunch of animals running around, like a llama, I would love.”