Roman Torres has taken about the most scenic route to Madison a 23-year-old can manage. He started kicking a ball at a Dallas YMCA at four, spent a decade coming up through FC Dallas, and from there went chasing a pro career the hard way — a stint in Germany, a junior-college year in Iowa, a season at Creighton, a first-round SuperDraft call, and a toughen-up loan to Birmingham — before landing at Forward Madison and immediately looking like one of the best players in the league.

We sat down with Roman for the full story, kicking off, fittingly, with the road that gives this episode its name. He takes us back to the Y and the indoor field where FC Dallas first found him, getting worked by the Real Madrid and Barça academies at the Dallas Cup, watching the draft stream on a loop at his grandparents' house while his dad teared up, and Googling Minneapolis winters with nothing but a Creighton puffer to his name. We get into the Player-of-the-Week start at defending champion Knoxville, why he treats the plaudits as a privilege rather than pressure, and the one part of his own game he still isn't satisfied with.

We also dig into the football he's actually playing right now — the set-piece craft he built staying late at Creighton, the growing understanding with Claudel N'Goubou, and the one-touch goal with Derek Gebhard against the Cosmos that Mitch has watched roughly twenty times and counting. Roman tells us what's really behind this run of home form, Mark Segbers' captaincy chief among it, and what it took to grind through the season's brutal early travel and finally get back to Breese in front of the Flock.

And because no road to Madison is complete without a roommate and a dog, we close with the JT Harms saga — how a goalkeeper who once drove Roman nuts with a ten-save game ended up his roommate — and the long-haired miniature dachshund who actually sealed the deal: Chica Lebron Doncic Torres. Four names. You only hear all of them when she's in trouble.