EL CAJON — For parts of two years, San Diego FC has been confined to plans scribbled on paper and conversations in tucked-away rooms.

It’s been theoretical with each step mapped out from fuzzy visions in organizers’ heads.

Then came Monday at the team’s performance center in rural El Cajon, a 125,000-foot campus built atop a golf course and old roadside hotel on Sycuan tribal land.

The Major League Soccer expansion team became real.

The first training session meant real players, real drills and sketchy outlines gaining faces and legs and a tangible presence.

“There’s nothing like smelling the grass,” CEO Tom Penn said. “When you’re in a conference room or when you’re in the initial phases of conceptualizing this, when you can get out and smell the grass, the real grass, and be on it with players, that’s shifting into a new gear.”

The top-level professional franchise sprinted to life with the 14 months between sinking groundbreaking shovels to the first organized workout signaling a dizzying turn, especially by glacial San Diego standards.

They appointed Penn, the former president of LAFC and a one-time NBA executive and ESPN analyst. They hired 33-year-old Tyler Heaps, the youngest sporting director in the league.

They lassoed head coach Mikey Varas, whose work included a stint as interim coach of the U.S. National Team. They landed Mexican mega-star Hirving “Chucky” Lozano.

They began collecting other players, building a jigsaw puzzle SDFC hopes can translate into sustained winning. As the team worked out Monday, the club announced it had acquired Finnish midfielder Onni Valakari on loan from Cyprus’ Pafos FC.

“I’ve looked at them on the whiteboard for so long,” Heaps said.

There’s so much that is uniquely new about the club.

Its ground-zero start includes the Right to Dream Academy, a broad-based approach and U.S. first rooted in youth players as young as 12 with like-minded facilities in Ghana, Egypt and Denmark.

“I think it’s the Field of Dreams, right?” Heaps said. “You look at this valley where we are, the mountain backdrop, it’s amazing coming to work every morning.”

Then there’s the partnership with Sycuan.

“The came and blessed (the facility) with sage smoke and did some dancing and some singing,” Heaps said. “… It was fantastic to see.”

Penn’s NBA background included roles with the Trail Blazers and Grizzlies.

Now there’s another new start with a fresh twist.

“A multi-billionaire bought Vancouver and we moved it to Memphis,” he said. “So the first day of practice in Memphis was when I got the first taste of this idea of bringing a new team to a new market.

“This, though, is from the ground up. It was so fast.”

The whole of it feels special and different.

“It’s kind of unbelievable, right?” Varas said. “It’s a pinch-yourself-every-single-day moment. It’s an incredible honor. … You feel this tremendous responsibility.”

Varas, the coach, said he is leaning on elements of his national team experience while knowing this path also represents to much that is un-walked.

Charted and uncharted, all at once.

“I took over a U-20 national team that hadn’t played for two years because of the pandemic,” Varas said. “So I have experience starting something from scratch where the guy next to him is introducing himself. In the national team, you have a very short time to work to get your ideas across.

“… This season, we’re starting from zero. There’s no previous history of how we work. So I’m going to be able to use that, be able to get ideas across quickly and concisely that I got from the national team.

“The secret to that is keep it simple and don’t get in the way.”

Another interesting thread: Padres star Manny Machado is a minority owner.

Penn said that provides advantages.

“Mr. San Diego? It’s helpful,” Penn said with a laugh. “He’s awesome. Manny is so beloved and for the right reasons. In our case, he brought his heart to this. He’s very busy, but he’s accessible to us. A little Manny goes a long way, right?

“If he can lend his local credibility and brand and love of the city to our new project, it means a lot.”

Another benefit?

” Chucky Lozano is a superstar,” Penn said. “Manny can help Chucky. They can have a direct relationship. There are very few people that Chucky can share the experience with about what it’s like. Manny is one of those people.”

Heaps smiled at all that has plopped on his plate in his 30s.

“I’m getting older every day,” he said. “I’m getting more grays every single day.”

One person to bounce ideas off is his new wife, U.S. women’s national team captain Lindsey Horan.

Heaps said he is wise to listen.

“She gives me a lot of advice,” he said. “And I take it because she’s done quite a bit with her career. So if we can have half the amount of success that she’s had, we’ll be one of the most successful clubs in the world.”

On Monday, everything got real.