reportedly be charging at least $250<\/a> for parking at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood for group play matches not featuring the United States.<\/p>\nBy comparison, Rutstein said a season ticket for OCSC can be purchased for less than $200, leaving the club with an opportunity to gain new fans at a time when the sport\u2019s popularity will be streaking.<\/p>\n
\u201cWalking into a world where everyone suddenly cares about soccer is a huge opportunity for us,\u201d Rutstein said. \u201cI think \u201994 was big when they had the World Cup [in the U.S.], but it took a long time for the benefits to really be seen. This is the one where fans are going to enjoy the games, then find that there\u2019s actually real soccer to follow. I\u2019d be amazed if we don\u2019t pick up hundreds of new fans through the end of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though soccer fans nationwide will be dialed in when World Cup matches begin on June 11, Orange County Soccer Club is also helping to cultivate the next generation of stars closer to home.<\/p>\n
The Orange County Soccer Club Foundation held its fourth annual gala at the Hilton Orange County\/Costa Mesa on Feb. 5. The event served as a fundraiser for the foundation\u2019s free after-school soccer programs.<\/p>\n
Lisa Keston, the executive director of the OCSC Foundation and the club\u2019s vice president of community relations, said nearly 3,000 children have participated in the after-school soccer league over the last four years.<\/p>\n
The league is currently offered exclusively through the 23 elementary schools in the Anaheim Elementary School District, though Keston said expansion to another district is planned.<\/p>\n
The children and their families are provided the league free of charge.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe provide coaches, referees, uniforms, equipment where needed,\u201d Keston said. \u201cAnd we help them come up with structure. Club soccer costs thousands of dollars a year for most families. We want to provide that kind of structure and experience at no cost to these families.\u201d<\/p>\n
The teams are co-ed. Each school\u2019s 20-player roster must have at least eight girls, said Efrain Paniagua, Extended Learning Opportunities Program administrator for the Anaheim Elementary School District.<\/p>\n
Each school has tryouts, and matches against the other schools started in December. It all leads up to the league finals day in April, when they will be held at Glover Stadium in Anaheim.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s literally our World Cup,\u201d Paniagua said. \u201cWe have about 1,000 people show up. We even have a halftime show, where we have our district mariachi showcase and a district spirit squad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soccer is close to Paniagua\u2019s heart. He has played since he was 5 and has fond memories of taking shots from soccer legends like Mia Hamm and Brandi Chastain in 1999, when he was a men\u2019s soccer goalkeeper at Occidental College.<\/p>\n
He sees the partnership with OCSC as valuable, noting that tryouts for the league are competitive and can draw as many as 70 children at a school site.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of playing [soccer] in this country, in this state, is pay to play,\u201d Paniagua said. \u201cDo some of our kiddos in the league play club, or play on the weekends? Sure. But then, there\u2019s also kids that just want to see if they like it \u2026 It\u2019s the ability to come out and try something different.\u201d<\/p>\n
The OCSC Foundation gala honored longtime CBS sports broadcaster Jim Hill as well as Noel Burcelis, executive director of Ronald McDonald House Orange County. The program included a question-and-answer session with former U.S. national team player Joe-Max Moore, and OCSC head coach Danny Stone introduced this year\u2019s squad.<\/p>\n
James Keston purchased the club in 2016 and rebranded it to the Orange County Soccer Club the following year. In 2021, the club won the United Soccer League Championship title<\/a>.<\/p>\nLast year, OCSC advanced to the Western Conference semifinals. The home season for 2026 begins on March 7, when Orange County hosts Las Vegas Lights FC.<\/p>\n
James Keston, who said he has been to five World Cups, is excited the tournament is coming stateside this summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a year that we\u2019ve been looking forward to for a lot of reasons,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause the World Cup is coming, and then obviously we have the Olympics coming after that [in 2028], there\u2019s going to be a lot of high-level soccer in our backyard \u2026 We are excited to be in the right sport at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The World Cup is coming to the United States this summer for the first time in more than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,7001,192382,59525,11516,852,15274,192381,2002,192383,192380,192384,14394,561,82,2001,192379,2552],"class_list":["post-473254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-child","tag-efrain-paniagua","tag-elementary-school","tag-executive-director","tag-family","tag-fan","tag-keston","tag-league","tag-ocsc-president","tag-orange-county-soccer-club","tag-rutstein","tag-school","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-summer","tag-world-cup-opportunity","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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