{"id":244414,"date":"2011-07-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-11T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/soccer-team-cultivates-local-talent\/"},"modified":"2011-07-11T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-07-11T07:00:00","slug":"soccer-team-cultivates-local-talent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/soccer-team-cultivates-local-talent\/","title":{"rendered":"Soccer team cultivates local talent"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Soccer<\/a>
Kicking the ball around at a Boca Soccer game.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cSomething San Diego has been waiting for\u201d<\/p>\n

By Ashley Garman | <\/strong>Reportero SDUN<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t have it,\u201d soccer legend Milutin \u201c\u0160ole\u201d \u0160o\u0161ki told Steve Gonzalez, a 17-year-old with a bright future in baseball but a passionate desire to pursue soccer instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t even know how to catch a soccer ball,\u201d remembers Steve. \u201cI looked like garbage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thirteen years later, Gonzalez is the starting goalkeeper for the San Diego Boca Futbol Club\u2019s first team. Boca, founded in 2009 by Yan Skwara, is composed of 27 men ranging in age from 18 to 32. It\u2019s one of 38 teams in the National Premier Soccer League, which is primarily a developmental league to groom players and prepare them for professional soccer careers as well as offer a place for veteran players who still want to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s putting together a team with a combination of youth and veterans to create that magic on the field where everybody benefits,\u201d said Skwara. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to have veterans and you\u2019ve got to have youth because you need the power and the speed that a youth has, but you need the mind and experience of a veteran.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u0160o\u0161ki and other soccer veterans invested in Steve\u2019s unrefined talent and undeniable perseverance as a teenager, and Steve signed his first professional contract by the time he was 23 years old. He recalls his first experience as a member of the Atlas team in Guadalajara, Mexico, as a \u201crude awakening.\u201d His teammates were there to do a job\u2014maintain their bodies so as to perform their best at every game. There was no messing around.<\/p>\n

When he returned to the States to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy, the mindset was even more focused. He was playing with guys he had looked up to and admired from afar, and witnessing their focus and professionalism up close he found even more to aspire to.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir preparation for training sessions was intense, let alone game day,\u201d he said. Steve\u2019s current teammates
\ncould be on their way to the Galaxy\u2019s level, according to Boca\u2019s general manager Travis Chesney.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the beginning of the year, it was kind of a ramshackle team,\u201d he said. The season, which runs April through August, held some surprising changes for the team. Boca\u2019s former head coach Eliseo \u201cPapo\u201d Santos recently parted ways and assistant coach Sabi\u00f1o Tinajero stepped into the role.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite all the roster losses, mixups, coaching issues, we still have a decent record,\u201d said Steve. \u201cBoca does well when our backs are against the wall. This team is a pro team\u2014it has that potential because pro teams react situations. If you can act and perform well in pressure situations, you\u2019re ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe players we have now have really stepped up,\u201d said Chesney. \u201cThis is finally the program that should have been instated a long time ago at Boca.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Steve, the winning record is not as important as having a team that puts in its all every time. The passion of the sport is what brought him to soccer after following the 1998 World Cup finals. He had noticed growing arrogance and pompousness within the realm of baseball, and witnessing the sincere passion for the game that soccer fans held was refreshing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a mutual respect because the game is bigger than all of that [attitude], and that\u2019s what I fell in love with\u2014that soccer is a global game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chesney also sees that passion for soccer in the local community. \u201cYou can\u2019t go five miles in San Diego without running into a soccer field or soccer team.\u201d With an increasing fan base, Boca is planning to build a new soccer facility that will eventually expand to meet Major League Soccer standards.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, MLS won\u2019t really entertain having a team in San Diego unless there\u2019s a facility that\u2019s soccer-specific and houses 18,500 people,\u201d said Skwara. He is looking at properties in Chula Vista and is confident that construction will be started by the end of next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIdeally, we would like to see San Diego Boca become that team, but that\u2019s getting a little bit ahead of the game because there\u2019s so much work to be done,\u201d said Skwara, who feels that if Boca works toward
\ngetting the facility, that will get them to the next level in soccer as well.<\/p>\n

Boca games currently average about 1,000 onlookers, but about double that witnessed the team\u2019s recent victory over the San Diego Flash. The June 11 game was fan appreciation day, and Boca invited about 200 volunteers from Big Brothers Big Sisters to watch the game.<\/p>\n

The BBBS organization is just one of many charities Boca works with. The team has also worked with Embrace.org and the Salvation Army, giving out free game tickets, promoting events for the nonprofits and participating in benefits and fundraisers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what the communityneeds\u2014a team that\u2019s willing to give back,\u201d said Steve. \u201cI feel like it\u2019s family here. I feel like there\u2019s growth and I feel like this is something San Diego has been waiting for.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSomething San Diego has been waiting for\u201d By Ashley Garman | SDUN Reporter \u201cYou don\u2019t have it,\u201d soccer legend Milutin \u201c\u0160ole\u201d \u0160o\u0161ki told Steve Gonzalez, a 17-year-old with a bright future in baseball but a passionate desire to pursue soccer instead. \u201cI didn\u2019t even know how to catch a soccer ball,\u201d remembers Steve. \u201cI looked […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":244415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Soccer team cultivates local talent","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}