It’s cup season, as leagues cancelled play and clubs set up regional and local competitions to get some playing time. Concerns over pandemic threat, player safety, and local regulations have all been faced and checked off. Level of play has been great considering most clubs were revving up for league play before cancellations began rolling in. While some are just kicking off, several are wrapping up this week, including the DFW-based Roja League.

The brainchild of NPSL partners Damon Gochneaur and Micheal Hitchcock, the Roja League brought in clubs from multiple leagues. Denton brought two teams, Diablos and their reserve side, Estudiantes. They were joined by Hitchcock’s NPSL club, Fort Worth Vaqueros. Several UPSL sides, Inocentes and Irving FC, joined the mix. The final club was perennial USOC participant, NTX Rayados, who play in the North Texas Premier Soccer League. Damon was thrilled with the lineup he was able to gather for the tournament. “Thoroughly impressed, top to bottom every team has been extremely strong with some unbelievable goals scored each and every game.”

For the most part, the Roja League has gone off without a hitch, with the majority of the games being streamed throughout the competition. When asked about the effectiveness of the health protocols, he seemed satisfied with the job done. “While we are by no means health and safety experts, the reality is our positive test rate dropped each and every time we tested and we never experienced the outbreak within any of our teams or fans that other sports have seen happen. Our final weeks of testing produced zero positive results, even with our testing sample size increasing.”

The Denton Estudiantes side has really shown the depth of the Diablos program.

And Gochneaur should be satisfied with the results of the Roja League as the final of the competition will have both Denton sides facing each other. “Who could ask for anything more? And while that says a lot about the talent we have, I think it’s a huge testament to the job Head Coach Chad Rakestraw has done each and every day, starting with the day we appointed him 20 months ago. Chad’s done a phenomenal job and it’s culminating with our monopoly on all the hardware the Roja league has to offer. While we certainly entertained the notion and dreamed of this reality, we were all very cognizant that it was far more likely that neither team would end up in the finals than both teams would. Bottom line, I’m thrilled, proud and grateful.” Hard to complain when you know you’ve got a Cup coming at the end of the night.

The final kicks off this evening at 7:30pCT.

- Dan Vaughn