This is Our Journey - Men's Championship Sunday

11/04/21 - Written: Eric Ridgeway Fulton

Hello Fans & Community,

Every season, every year, has an identity. A collection of the personalities, energies, and events that compile the sum. This year, as soccer got back to mostly normal, we’d seen an exodus of the majority of the players that brought us to new heights over the past 3-4 years (2x US Open Cup Qualifying runs and 1st round wins). Guys either aged out and/or had families or moved. All completely normal phenomena in the amateur soccer world. Still, it’s tough to stay at or near the top of an increasingly competitive Colorado Soccer scene when those roster changes come.

And since operating this non-profit community organization is a passion project (i.e. unpaid, done to support player opportunity, build community, & sporting competition), when you’re not growing, your falling behind. And it’s not that winning is everything, it’s the process of improvement and purpose, and some version of success, is a requirement to the project’s long-term continuity.

Add to that a couple of Men’s team coaching changeovers in the past 24 months and it’s been a whirlwind. To our credit, our top Men’s team is always tough to beat, always competitive. A playoff quality squad every season. But would we be able to get back to and win a championship. Could we? Are we growing or falling behind?

After a solid spring season that saw us lose in Semifinal’s on penalties, we were once again good, but not truly on the championship doorstep. You see, we’ve had plenty of successes in our Open Cup endeavors over the recent years, but we haven’t won a league championship (Spring or Fall) in 5+ years (which a long time for a club that considers itself among the best in Colorado). The Spring and Fall leagues are our bread and butter, it’s what we do week in and week out. In recent years, we’ve competed in a few championship matches, but haven’t won, and more often that not, we’ve come short just before the final.

Back to this year, after a solid Spring, we looked ahead to preparing for another Open Cup Qualifying run. We had just one league match before Round 1 of Open Cup qualifying began. We lost that match in uber-disappointing fashion to a team we’ve never lost to before. We thought, hopefully, it was just an aberation, an adjustment period situation to a new formation, or possibly a shaking off of summer rust, but then we went on to lose in Round 1 of Open Cup Qualifying (again to a team (and their previous versions) we’d never lost to) in truly heartbreaking fashion. We dominated a vast majority of the match and outshot the opponent by a 26-6 stat-line, but we found a way to lose on penalties. It made you wonder, even with all the belief in our players and coaches we possessed, whether we were moving ahead or falling behind.

Since that time, it’s been a new era. We’ve gone undefeated in 7 matches, which included playing the very best teams in the statue, and culminated in a long overdue victory over Harpos FC in the league Semifinal last weekend. This team is special and has displayed the quality and spirit of a champion. After all the changes, we have a new crew who are on the doorstep of the championship that has alluded us. This Sunday, we face up against a formidable Azteca FC 5280 side who is undoubtedly one of the best in the region (they won the Alianza Tourney here in Denver this summer, qualifying them for Nationals in Jan) and they are one qualifying match win away from earning their ticket the 2022 US Open Cup.

With nothing else on our itinerary, our eyes are locked on Sunday. This is our journey. These are the moments we play for. We hope you’ll join us Sunday to be a part of the story.