Sergio Vivanco wanted to make sure local kids had a place to practice, even recruiting kids door-to-door for his competitive team.<\/p>\n
ARLINGTON, Texas \u2014 Every Monday and Wednesday, a group of young soccer players runs drills, takes shots and chases a dream on a field that was built out of love. The field isn\u2019t at a park or a sports complex, but in Sergio Vivanco\u2019s Arlington backyard.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve been involved in soccer for 35 years and I have two kids,\u201d Vivanco said. \u201cI’ve been coach for my kids and now that I have the ability to buy a big property and to build a soccer field, that was one of my dreams and it came true.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vivanco built the field behind his home for his 12 and 13-year-old team that competes with Atletico Dallas, a youth soccer club. They\u2019re good, too. Winning year after year. \u201c100 degrees they show up to practice. It’s 35 degrees they show up to practice,\u201d Vivanco said.<\/p>\n
For players like Brevon Jones, the field has become more than a place to play. It is a place to belong. \u201cI feel alive,\u201d Jones said. \u201cI feel like I’m with people that I know I have a hobby with, and it’s just nice to be around people that I can do the same thing that I like to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vivanco said he first recruited players by going door to door and visiting nearby grocery stores. \u201cAt first to my wife, it was like a crazy idea,\u201d he said. Crazy or not, the idea is working.<\/p>\n
Soccer continues to grow across North Texas, and Vivanco said more people are paying attention to the sport than ever before, with a once in a generation tournament coming to the United States, and matches taking place just miles away.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can see so many clubs, and it’s been growing drastically,\u201d Vivanco said. \u201cNow everybody’s paying attention to soccer.\u201d He even joked he may even have to cancel some practices so the boys can watch the World Cup matches.<\/p>\n
When asked what it would mean to one day put on a USA jersey, Jones did not hesitate. \u201cIt would feel amazing,\u201d Jones said. \u201cI would love to represent my country. It would feel like a dream.\u201d For now, that dream is being built one practice at a time, on a backyard field in Arlington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sergio Vivanco wanted to make sure local kids had a place to practice, even recruiting kids door-to-door for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151],"class_list":["post-368340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}