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Chatting With Monterey Bay’s Wunderkind, Xavi Gnaulati

The USL Championship soccer prospect hasn’t reached his 20th birthday and is already a valuable player with his best years ahead

Andrew Martin
6 min readSep 28, 2024

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Developing young talent is the lifeblood of any soccer franchise. Having a continuous flow of prospects helps ensure continuity and success. Someone Monterey Bay F.C. has high hopes for is their very own wunderkind, midfielder Xavi Gnaulati, who already has a wealth of experience under his belt despite his youth.

Just how young is Gnaulati? Well, he is 19 and three and a half years younger than any other player on the Union roster. However, age is just a number and he lets his play do his talking for him.

Gnaulati is a native of San Diego, which included playing youth soccer with the San Diego Surf (where his dad Giulio has coached since 2015). He was part of the 2014 squad that won the 2014 State Cup Championship when he was only nine.

Fast forward to 2021, Gnaulati joined the USL Championship side San Diego Loyal and their academy team. His pro debut came in 2022 under club manager and U.S. soccer legend, Landon Donovan.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you view it in hindsight), Gnaulati’s professional coming out came at…

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Andrew Martin

Dabbler in soccer, history, investing & writing. Master’s degree in baseball history. Passionate about history, diversity, culture, sports, film and investing .