{"id":210056,"date":"2026-03-08T06:46:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T06:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/210056\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T06:46:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T06:46:21","slug":"sacramento-republic-fc-opens-season-with-7th-straight-sellout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/210056\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacramento Republic FC opens season with 7th straight sellout"},"content":{"rendered":"

SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 Sacramento Republic FC<\/a> opened its season Saturday night with its seventh consecutive opening-night sellout, drawing more than 11,500 fans to Heart Health Park as families from across the region packed the stands.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of fans swarmed the stadium for the club\u2019s opening match, marking the return of a tradition many local families say they look forward to every year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve always been to these games, and I never miss one,\u201d said young fan Damian Padilla.<\/p>\n

For some fans, attending Republic FC games has become a family gathering that stretches across generations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve got wives here, we got cousins, the whole family, nieces, brother-in-law. Yeah, it’s a family event,\u201d said Jose Maldonado, who traveled from Lincoln with relatives.<\/p>\n

Fans came from communities around the region, including Lincoln and Lodi, contributing to the crowd of more than 11,500.<\/p>\n

Kandy Soto, a mother of two from Lodi, said her father has been buying tickets for the family since the club began playing in 2014. With several new players on this year\u2019s roster, she said she hopes the team can live up to the legacy of past fan favorites.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m just expecting a good season and for them to give it their all. I mean, I’ve been since Clementa, since Henry, since a lot of the players, so I’m really hoping to get that vibe back again,\u201d Soto said.<\/p>\n

Soto said she hopes her daughters will take an interest in soccer as they get older, similar to local youth players who were watching the match from the stands.<\/p>\n

Some of those young fans said watching professionals play motivates them to keep working toward their own goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s inspiring,\u201d said Rekik Dawit.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I look up to them a lot. It’s really cool,\u201d said Inleli Ayanou. \u201cBecause they’re advanced. I wanna be like them when I get older, and I wanna do MLS.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I feel like it’s really cool seeing how like how far they’ve came so far,\u201d said Memen Dawit.<\/p>\n

Even with some fans keeping an eye on players from the opposing team, most said they still want to see Sacramento come out on top.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe came to see Geo from Tulsa,\u201d Maldonado said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope Sac kicks, you know, kicks some butt, even though we’re, we’re, rooting for another guy, but, we love it,\u201d Maldonado added. \u201cSoccer, soccer, we\u2019ve all played soccer. We got a bunch of kids that played soccer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sacramento Republic FC\u2019s next game will be on the road against Lexington SC next Saturday. The team will return home March 18 for its next match at Heart Health Park.<\/p>\n

Watch more from ABC10:\u00a0Sunrise Mall Sports and Entertainment plan hopes to revive property<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC10: Watch, Download, Read<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 Sacramento Republic FC opened its season Saturday night with its seventh consecutive opening-night sellout, drawing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-210056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210056","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=210056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}