{"id":385644,"date":"2026-07-04T01:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T01:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/385644\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T01:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T01:36:08","slug":"new-generation-of-south-florida-soccer-players-being-inspired-by-fifa-world-cup-in-miami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/385644\/","title":{"rendered":"New generation of South Florida soccer players being inspired by FIFA World Cup in Miami"},"content":{"rendered":"

Young soccer players in Oakland Park say the FIFA World Cup<\/a> is fueling their dreams of one day competing on that same stage.<\/p>\n

Kids at America’s Got Soccer<\/a>, a youth program in Oakland Park, said players like Lionel Messi<\/a> have become heroes to them.<\/p>\n

Lua Pratt said she already has big aspirations.<\/p>\n

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” CBS News Miami reporter Bri Buckley asked. “A famous soccer player,” Pratt said.<\/p>\n

Pratt said Messi is her biggest inspiration.<\/p>\n

“He’s the best soccer player in the world,” Pratt said.<\/p>\n

Her teammate, Aria Dayan, feels the same way. Aria’s father, Pai Dayan, said Messi’s presence in South Florida<\/a> has made a real difference.<\/p>\n

“Messi being here has been a huge spark of interest for her, we go to local games as well she just loves the game of soccer,” Pai Dayan said.<\/p>\n

Camilo Giraldo, whose son Matthew is also in the program, said the excitement at home has been hard to miss.<\/p>\n

“He’s so excited, he knows every single player’s name,” Giraldo said.<\/p>\n

Matthew already has his eye on the bigger picture.<\/p>\n

“That’s Ronaldo’s last World Cup,” he said.<\/p>\n

Coach Luis Dos Santos said the FIFA World Cup is all his players can talk about.<\/p>\n

“Those kids they just talk about Messi, Neymar, Cristiano, they are kind of heroes for them,” Dos Santos said.<\/p>\n

For some families, getting to an actual match is the next challenge. Ticket prices have been a hurdle.<\/p>\n

“The prices are crazy, but we’re working on it,” Pai Dayan said.<\/p>\n

The Giraldo family has already locked in their plans.<\/p>\n

“We’re going to Colombia-Portugal, we’re so excited to be a part of it,” Camilo Giraldo said.<\/p>\n

America’s Got Soccer plans to host watch parties for some of the bigger matches during the tournament.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Young soccer players in Oakland Park say the FIFA World Cup is fueling their dreams of one day…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[30676,143,145,144,29283,127,5393],"class_list":["post-385644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-broward-county","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-south-florida","tag-sports","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385644","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=385644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}