{"id":249545,"date":"2026-04-03T04:03:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T04:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/249545\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T04:03:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T04:03:18","slug":"orange-county-soccer-club-to-host-10k-fans-in-special-one-off-match-in-santa-ana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/249545\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange County Soccer Club to host 10K fans in special one-off match in Santa Ana"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Orange County Soccer Club is expected to draw the biggest crowd for a competitive soccer match in Orange County history for a special one-off home match.<\/p>\n<p>The club will host Oakland Roots SC at Eddie West Field in Santa Ana on May 23, it was announced this week. <\/p>\n<p>The expected attendance of 10,000 fans at the Santa Ana Stadium match would be the largest in club history. An alternative venue was needed, as <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.orangecountysoccer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Orange County Soccer Club<\/a> is temporarily relocating from its home at Championship Soccer Stadium in Irvine because the venue is serving as a training base for the United States men\u2019s national team ahead of this summer\u2019s FIFA World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s obviously an enormous opportunity for the club,\u201d said Dan Rutstein, the organization\u2019s president of business relations. \u201cWe knew that with the World Cup coming, there would be some disruption to our schedule &#8230; One way of looking at it is, oh my God, this is terrible, we\u2019re going to have to find some alternative venue. The other way is, what an amazing, unique opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rutstein said the club <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uslchampionship.com\/news_article\/show\/1287718\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">has a long-term deal at Championship Soccer Stadium<\/a> and enjoys playing there, but the one-off match fell into the team\u2019s lap in some ways.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are, after all, Orange County Soccer Club, not Irvine Soccer Club,\u201d Rutstein said. \u201cThis is a chance to take the OCSC experience on the road and play in a different city. We have fans who support the club all over the county, including some pretty high numbers that come from Santa Ana &#8230; We see this as a real upside opportunity to make the most of what\u2019s happening with the World Cup, and do something we may never get to do again.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>The club has several road matches during the period it needs to be out of Championship Soccer Stadium, so only the one match needed an alternative venue, Rutstein said. This month, Orange County has home matches in Irvine on April 8 against San Antonio FC, April 18 against Lexington SC and April 25 against El Paso Locomotive FC.<\/p>\n<p>The next home match scheduled after the special Santa Ana match in May isn\u2019t until July 11. <\/p>\n<p>The match at Eddie West Field will feature the club\u2019s Beerfest, along with live music, unique merchandise and more surprises to be announced.<\/p>\n<p>Orange County fell at home to Phoenix Rising 2-1 in extra time on Wednesday night, ending the local club\u2019s U.S. Open Cup run. Early in the season, Orange County is 2-0-2 in the USL Championship Western Conference standings, good for second place. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orange County Soccer Club is expected to draw the biggest crowd for a competitive soccer match in Orange&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[111209,20675,111211,1883,111206,11190,111212,2462,111210,143,145,144,111205,111207,338,111208,111213,8843],"class_list":{"0":"post-249545","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-alternative-venue","9":"tag-april","10":"tag-championship-soccer-stadium","11":"tag-club","12":"tag-dan-rutstein","13":"tag-fifa-world-cup","14":"tag-home-match","15":"tag-irvine","16":"tag-k-fan","17":"tag-oakland","18":"tag-oakland-headlines","19":"tag-oakland-news","20":"tag-orange-county-history","21":"tag-orange-county-soccer-club","22":"tag-santa-ana","23":"tag-special-one-off-match","24":"tag-unique-merchandise","25":"tag-way"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249545","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=249545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}