Born in St. Paul,[1] Minnesota[2] Lagos played college soccer for the NCAA Division-I Milwaukee Panthers from 1990 to 1992,[3] and was named an NSCAA First-Team All-American in 1991.
[5] Upon leaving the club for MLS in 1996, he was inducted into the Thunder Hall of Fame with career totals of 29 goals and 12 assists; his brother and teammate, Gerard Lagos (who played for the team from 1990 through 2001) is also an inductee.
He impressed right away,[7] but his season was cut short after he tore his left-knee's ACL, MCL, and LCL in a single horrific injury just six games in.
Nowhere near fully recovered and considering retirement,[1] he only played one game for the MLS Cup champions in 1998, and went on to make only 9 appearances in 1999, always as a substitute, excluded from the first eleven due to his unreliable health and the Fire's surplus of attacking players.
[4][9] Lagos' vagabond MLS career took him to the Tampa Bay Mutiny with Ritchie Kotschau on August 2, 1999, part of a trade for Sam George and Paul Dougherty.
[9][10] Lagos continued his momentum in 2000, when he scored 8 goals and added 7 assists in 1500 minutes, making him the league's tenth-place leader in points per game,[11] but he would eventually request a trade for personal reasons, as his wife disliked Tampa and wished to pursue her law career elsewhere.
[4] Noted for his gangly legs[1] and long, awkward strides,[16] Lagos possessed an unusual style on the ball where his technical skill[17] and knack for dribbling past opponents[18] belied his superficially clumsy appearance.
[1] On February 10, 2010, Lagos was appointed as the head coach of newly expansion NSC Minnesota Stars following the implosion of the Thunder.