Newcomer Lowe is feeling right at home
News that he’d been traded to the Philadelphia Union came as a surprise to Damion Lowe in January.
The Jamaican center back had established himself as a starter for Inter Miami in his first season, making 28 appearances. At 29, squarely into a career with stops in Norway and Egypt, it looked like Lowe was coming into his own. His emergence as an above-average MLS center back was pivotal in Miami making the jump to the playoffs in its second season, his steadiness helping the expansion club go from haphazard roster-building experiment to a coherent on-field vision.
That wasn’t enough to keep Lowe in town. As he prepares to return this weekend when the Union visit DRV PNK Stadium (7:30 p.m. Saturday, AppleTV), he harbors no ill will for just another instance of how the soccer business works.
“I’m kind of excited to go back and play against Inter,” Lowe said. “I went into the franchise when it was in shambles and we kind of rebuilt everything and brought a brotherhood into the locker room. But it’s the nature of the game, people move on all the time. I’m a Union player, so I’m excited to go get the three points.”
Lowe has had a unique journey since Seattle picked him eighth in the 2014 MLS SuperDraft, seven selections behind his countryman and Union teammate Andre Blake. He didn’t get a league game with the Sounders in three seasons on the books, mostly on loan to lower divisions, before spending 2017 with the Tampa Bay
Rowdies. He jumped to Europe that summer with Norway’s IK Start, and after a brief stateside return to second-division Phoenix Rising that was interrupted by the pandemic in 2020, he spent parts of two seasons with Egyptian club Al Ittihad.
All that relocating meant Lowe was grateful when Inter Miami reached out. Chris Henderson, Miami’s sporting director, had been part of the Sounders front office that drafted him, and Lowe shares an agent with Inter coach Phil Neville.
His wife and son live in Miami, which was an important factor. On the field, it offered a chance to play regularly while being close to home.
“If felt like coming home,” he said. “I was happy to be close to my family, being settled again. When you’re away sometimes, in foreign countries and foreign languages and different things you have to adapt to, being with family is always amazing to being able to focus and ply your trade.”
Some of those factors are well out of Lowe’s control. He’s had interest in the last two years from clubs in the top two divisions in England that has fizzled because of UK work permitting. The closest to completion was in late 2021 from Premier League club Crystal Palace, he said, but it fell apart when Jamaica dropped out of the top 50 in the FIFA World Rankings in Sept. 2021. (Work permit regulations require foreign signings to be regular internationals for top-50 ranked nations; Lowe has 48 caps for Jamaica.)
Inter Miami stepped into that void to bring him back from Alexandria, and Lowe was grateful for the chance to get back to the country he’s live in since age 16.
“I had a really good season in Inter Miami, their best defender, probably top-two best player with stats and everything, but I got traded,” he said. “I don’t know why.”
If staying in Miami was easiest for Lowe, the Union are the next best thing. Jim Curtin coached him in the summer of 2013 when, before his final season at the University of Hartford, Lowe played for Reading United in the Premier Developmental League. Lowe knows Blake well from their national team stints, and he’s familiar with Jakob Glesnes from playing in Norway.
The Union are hitting the first of what could be many busy stretches this year, traveling straight from Miami to El Salvador for the first leg of the CONCACAF Champions League on Tuesday against Alianza. They have a quick turnaround to be back in Chester March 11 to take on Chicago.
Periods like this are why the Union wanted Lowe, who Curtin views as a starting center back in this league. He should get his first chance in the next few games to show how his comfort in Philadelphia translates on the field.
“When I came over to Philly, it’s like I didn’t have to resettle,” he said. “Finding a house, yeah, getting to know all the players’ names and new staff names, but I kind of felt at home already with most of the players and how they welcomed me and my familiarities with Jim. It’s nothing new for me, and I was familiar with the area because I was up at Reading and coming down to YSC to play with the academy and also training with the first team when it was needed. It was an easy transition for me.”