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The 21-year-old caught Jesse Marsch’s attention after a dream summer in MLS.

The past year has been a whirlwind for Marcus Caldeira.

The 21-year-old Minnesota United forward made his first-team debut for the Major League Soccer club in May, but became a regular starter in August. Suddenly, he’s scored five goals in nine games, and he’s one of the hottest strikers in MLS.

He seems to have caught Jesse Marsch’s eye, too; on Monday, Caldeira was called up to join the Canadian men’s national team for their friendly this week against the United States.

It wasn’t long ago, however, that Caldeira was honing his craft in the Ontario Premier League with Sigma FC. He spent years there, beginning in the academy around age 12 before graduating to the first team and, ultimately, taking his first professional steps with Forge FC in the Canadian Premier League.

Caldeira’s rise since making his pro debut in 2022 has been, in his words, “surreal.” It’s been a long path for him, moving from the OPL environment to CPL, and from there into college soccer with West Virginia University.

His four years playing in NCAA Division I caught the eye of plenty of MLS scouts, and Caldeira was drafted in the first round of the 2024 MLS SuperDraft.

“If we go back two years when I first got drafted, that was probably the pinnacle of everything I’ve worked for to get the opportunity,” Caldeira said. “Little did I know when I got into this space that there was even more work to be done.”

Ironically, Caldeira spoke to oplsoccer.ca a week ago, before his call-up to the national team. Of course, he knew that Canada would be coming to Minneapolis to play the U.S., so at the time he was just excited to support the team — particularly, cheering on fellow Sigma alumni like Cyle Larin, Richie Laryea and Tajon Buchanan. Instead, Caldeira will be joining the team in Larin’s place, as he and Buchanan return to their clubs to treat minor injuries.

Caldeira did mention that he had been working hard to get on Marsch’s radar; turns out, he was already on it.

It’s been an absolute dream summer for Caldeira, who broke into Minnesota’s lineup after they returned from the World Cup break, and he hasn’t looked back. 

“At the end of the day, scoring goals is fun,” he said. “I wouldn’t say it’s unexpected; in the Next Pro system I was scoring a couple goals there, and it was fun there, and I was just grateful to get my call up to the first team. I’m just glad that I took my chances how I did, and it paid off, right?”

Caldeira hasn’t forgotten his roots, though.

He looks back on his time in the Sigma organization with extreme fondness, giving major credit for his success to coaches John Zervos and Bobby Smyrniotis (who worked with Caldeira both in his early Sigma days and in the CPL with Forge).

“I owe it all to them,” he said. “At the end of the day, I was there since I was like 12, so 12 to 16, and then 16-17 I was with Forge. But Coach John, Coach Bobby, they all prepared me for the next level and the next step.

He added: “They know what they’re doing at the end of the day. They take the time to make sure that you’re ready for the next level, and they make sure every little single detail is where it needs to be for that level. The standards are really high, the training sessions were always really high, and there’s a demand for players to really put their best foot forward.”

Caldeira explained that the professional environment he trained in, both at Sigma and Forge, made his transition in Minnesota easier. He had experienced playing against adults in the OPL as a 15-year-old, and against full professionals in the CPL at age 17. He had trained with seasoned veterans, like Kyle Bekker and Ashtone Morgan, and had seen what other Sigma alumni have done with their careers.

“Coaches can put really good drills down and play us against really good opponents and enter us into really good tournaments, but at the end of the day it’s the people who make it,” Caldeira added.

“The resumé and the players that they’ve made show that if you put the work in, you put the time in, there’s an actual output to it. I’m seeing the end of that, and a couple other guys are, but they’ve really set the foundation in terms of my shooting, my dribbling, pretty much everything. When you’re 12 years old, you don’t have a whole lot; you’re really raw.”

Now a fully-formed professional striker after his years of development with Sigma, Caldeira remains grateful for the platform he had to succeed.

He remains a proponent of the college soccer pathway — certainly, he’s far from the only OPL alum to find his way to the pro game via the NCAA — but a key part of the story is how his time at Sigma, both before and during the summers of his college career, equipped him with the tools to shine at that level.

“I’m a big fan of the college system, and I think a lot of the Sigma guys and guys in the GTA did go that route because it was the only route at the time — you look at Cyle Larin for instance, he’s one of the ones that kind of started that movement for us Canadians,” Caldeira said. 

“I think the CPL is a great avenue, especially for players of my time. You see Hoce [Massunda] now reaping the benefits of it a little bit, but I think it’s another great avenue. It prepared me for the next level and prepared me for right now. You see other young guys like KJ [Tavernier], Hoce, Zayne [Bruno], all these guys, you see them reaping the benefits of it as well.”

Now, Caldeira’s meteoric rise continues; if he gets on the pitch to make his international debut for Canada on Tuesday, he’ll be the latest success story of the Canadian soccer pathway.

And with so much of his career still ahead of him, it seems the sky is the limit.