Nearly three years ago, when Matt Valentine was conjuring up his lofty ambitions for the professional soccer club he dreamed of building in Dallas, he jotted down a list of players as potential dream signings.At the top of that list? The Mexico national team’s record goalscorer, Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernández, who at the time was nearing the end of his four seasons with Major League Soccer’s LA Galaxy.“I forgot that I even put that on there,” Valentine, the now founder and chairman of Atlético Dallas, said with a smile in an exclusive interview with The Athletic on Monday morning. “I never in my wildest dreams thought we could have a player of his caliber right off the bat.”After a months-long courtship, that included keeping Valentine’s dream signing under wraps through this summer’s men’s World Cup, the USL Championship expansion side has announced Hernández as its first player before a debut season in 2027.The 38-year-old Mexican international has signed a two-year contract, with a club option for a third, pending league and federation approval, Atlético Dallas announced on Monday. The signing includes plans for Hernández to eventually move into the club’s sporting department, with ambitions of growing the sport in the U.S. city.“It’s a new chapter in my career, in my life,” Hernández told The Athletic. “It’s a project that I’m very attracted to because it’s a long-term project. It’s (just) starting, but it’s not that I’m going to be here just for one year and then ‘Goodbye.’ I’m going to have a relationship with this club for (the long term), and I hope we can achieve our goals.“Of course, we want to win championships. We want to win games. We want to be a great football club, as well – but what we want the most is to connect with the Dallas people, and they can feel represented. And Atlético Dallas can become something very important for the city.”Hernandez scored 39 goals in 82 matches for LA Galaxy over four seasons from 2020 (Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images)Hernández was last with his boyhood club, Chivas Guadalajara of Mexico, where he signed a two-year contract in January 2024. Chivas is where he started his globetrotting journey as a professional footballer in 2006 at 18 years old, but his late-career homecoming was marred by injury and criticism.