WINDSOR, Colo. – Irvin Parra, a lethal finisher who has scored 39 goals in the USL Championship and is the first USL Championship player to register double-digit goals and assists in the same season, has been signed by new USL League One club Northern Colorado Hailstorm FC, pending league and federation approval.
California native Parra, 28, has played in Germany and the United States during his 10-year pro career, scoring 57 goals and adding 32 assists in 209 total appearances. Eleven of those goals and 10 of those assists came during his history-making 2017 season with Seattle Sounders FC 2 and Orange County SC.
“Signing a player of Irvin’s quality and experience is a real coup for Northern Colorado,” said Hailstorm FC head coach Éamon Zayed. “Irvin is a very humble guy and a proper team player. For me, every successful team has to have natural born goalscorers, and Irvin is certainly that. He’s scored goals everywhere he has played, and has shown that in abundance in the USL Championship over the last few years.
“He’s also an all-around team player. He’s extremely unselfish and loves to provide almost as much as he loves to score, which is rare. He’s coming here with massive ambitions and the motivation to lead us to a title, and that’s exactly the type of player and character we want here.”
In 2021, Parra found the back of the net a team-joint-best 11 times for Charlotte Independence as the league’s fourth-highest-scoring club advanced all the way to the conference semifinals. His 11 strikes that year equaled that of teammate Dane Kelly, the Jamaican international who is the USL Championship’s all-time leading scorer.
Parra’s 2020 campaign with expansion side San Diego Loyal, where he scored once in five appearances during the league’s COVID-shortened season, followed a 2019 season where he captained Las Vegas Lights FC. With Las Vegas, his 15 goals not only led the side, they were the fifth-most in the Western Conference.
Parra’s history making 2017 campaign started in the Pacific Northwest with Seattle Sounders FC 2, where he scored six goals and a team-leading seven assists in 26 appearances. He then joined Orange County SC during the season, returning home to California where his wife was preparing to give birth to the couple’s second child. He then added another five goals and three assists for Orange County, giving him 11 combined goals and 10 combined assists for the season—USL Championship’s first double-double.
A native of Inglewood, California, Parra spent his first four years as a professional playing in Germany. He made three appearances in 2012 for FC 08 Homburg before leaving the club to join SVN Zweibrücken, where he scored six goals in two seasons and helped lead the club to the 2012–13 Oberliga Rheinland-Pfalz/Saar (German fifth tier) title. From there he moved to FC Kaiserslauten II in 2014, and played for the Rhineland club until he joined Sounders 2 partway through the 2016 season.
“I’m happy to be a part of history with the new franchise in Northern Colorado,” said Parra. “I’m excited to meet the guys, and I’m going to work to bring a title and a winning mentality to the team.”
Northern Colorado Hailstorm FC will make its USL League One debut on April 9 with a match against Richmond Kickers. Due to construction at the Future Legends Complex, the club’s first home match will be almost two months later, when they host North Carolina FC on June 8.
Hailstorm FC will play its home matches in the 6,500-seat main stadium of the Future Legends Complex, the premier destination for sports and events in Northern Colorado. Opening in 2022, the 118-acre complex will feature a professional stadium, multiple baseball diamonds and multi-purpose fields, an indoor sports arena, lodging, and retail; and will host guests for major sports tournaments, events, leagues, and more.