At the top of Phil Anschutz’s wish list for his brand new soccer team in 1996 was “the guy who did a funny overhead kick” in the 1994 World Cup. What he got was the face of Colorado soccer for a generation.

Three decades later, Marcelo Balboa’s No. 17 jersey will be immortalized at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park — a tribute to the defender who helped launch the Rapids and give a new league one of its first stars.

“As a kid, I didn’t play this game because I was looking to have my number retired. I wasn’t playing this game because I wanted to be in the (National Soccer) Hall of Fame,” Balboa told The Denver Post two weeks before Saturday night’s jersey retirement ceremony in Commerce City.

“My goal was to play soccer because I loved it, I breathed it and I lived it every day. So to sit here

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