{"id":148735,"date":"2026-01-25T07:39:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T07:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/148735\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T07:39:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T07:39:09","slug":"the-footballer-who-swapped-california-for-stoke-on-trent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/148735\/","title":{"rendered":"The footballer who swapped California for Stoke-on-Trent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phil BowersBBC Radio Stoke<\/p>\n

\"JuliaJulia Lucero<\/p>\n

Julia Lucero said her loved of football began at a young age in America<\/p>\n

Growing up in California, Julia Lucero was used to sunshine all year round – so how did she end up playing football on cold, wet nights in Stoke-on-Trent?<\/p>\n

To tell her story, it has to start with the sport – football was a constant throughout her life, with her parents signing her up for a team when she was young, before she went on to keep playing through her school years and into university.<\/p>\n

Then, while at university, she fell in love with another student – an Englishman – who also played football and was studying abroad. Eventually she moved across the pond to be with him.<\/p>\n

It was this move that saw her land a place on Port Vale Women squad – and confront, literally, that quip about playing in the cold and rain in Stoke-on-Trent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Where I lived in California it was sunshine year round, so I can say that the wind rain and freezing cold does take a bit of adjusting,” Lucero said.<\/p>\n

“He [my partner] was at the Vale Academy team and has been a supporter of Vale his entire life, so I told him I wanted to keep playing out in England.<\/p>\n

“He was like: ‘Vale has a women’s team, why don’t you go and give it a shot?’<\/p>\n

“So I went and tried it out and I made the team.”<\/p>\n

\"JuliaJulia Lucero<\/p>\n

Lucero said she loved creating and scoring goals for Port Vale Women<\/p>\n

She said women’s football, especially teams at World Cups, inspired her throughout her childhood and up to now.<\/p>\n

“Looking up to those women and what they can do inspired me to take it as far as I can,” she said.<\/p>\n

Lucero admitted that it took her a while to get used to how football was played in England.<\/p>\n

“The biggest challenge that I’ve faced while playing here has been how direct the game can be and definitely the physicality side of it – you don’t get that as much in America,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I really enjoyed having a completely new and different experience than what I’m used to.”<\/p>\n

One of the attacking players for the Staffordshire-based team, Lucero said she loved the role as it allowed her to influence games as “I really enjoy taking people on in one v ones and scoring and creating goal opportunities”.<\/p>\n

\"PortPort Vale Football Club<\/p>\n

Staffordshire was quite a change from California, she admitted – including the amount of sunshine!<\/p>\n

Since the start of the season, the squad have won four games and lost six, with the victories including beating local rivals Milton United Ladies 9-0 in the first round of the FA Women’s Challenge Vase, with Lucero scoring twice.<\/p>\n

“It’s definitely been an experience, different from being at home\u2026 I think to begin with, it’s not been the start we would’ve wanted, but I can see a lot of improvement within the team,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve proven that we are a very strong side.<\/p>\n

“We are a very young team and we have a lot of young players that have come in, me being one of them, so it’s just been getting to know each other on and off the field.”<\/p>\n

The team’s next game is on Sunday, at Keys Park against Hednesford Town FC Ladies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phil BowersBBC Radio Stoke Julia Lucero Julia Lucero said her loved of football began at a young age…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-148735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}