Cultures United are midway through their schedule in the UPSL Pacific Northwest and the other four clubs (St Johns FC, Deportivo Rose City, Belleview Athletic, and Primos de Palaez FC) all have one match in hand on them already. Sometimes that’s just how schedules work out; but, This won’t bother club manager Sebastian Diaz, or his squad too much - they are currently making the most of it and are top of the table on 9 points with a +3 goal difference. When asked about the turnaround, he noted “We placed 5th last season just barely missed out on the playoffs. This season we have focused on completing our team including bringing a new head coach and his staff on board.”

Coaches Gabriel Rueda and Ryan Martinez have clearly done good work and have the team pumping, “Our team is formed by a group of diverse individuals. We have players & staff from every continent. Players to look out for are Deric Avila (RW) Marcelo Rios (midfield) and Liam Lam (fullback)” says Sebastian. “Our club (Cultures) was founded in 2020. At the semi-pro level we seek to offer our teams the highest level of competition possible… Being a Seattle team we have rivalries against all the other Seattle teams (Ballard FC, Sporting International FC, Nido Aguila Seattle, etc) but we also have a nice rivalry going on against Portland team Deportivo Rose City making for a nice Cascadia Rivalry within the UPSL. The UPSL is a very competitive league though, every match feels like a rivalry.”

Cultures’ next match is at home, at Steve Cox Memorial Park, and they host aforementioned third place Deportivo Rose City, on Sunday, October 23rd. We had a chance to ask Avery Palchikoff, who is not only the Pacific Northwest Conference Manager, but also the President of Deportivo Rose City, what their hopes were for the season, “Last season we made it to the PNW conference final and lost in extra time 2-1. Reaching the conference final was our preseason goal. This season our goal is to win it and play NorCal’s best. We’ve worked to formalize our structure off the field and strengthen our organization.”

Currently, Deportivo RC have one win, one draw, and one loss - only 4 points from those first three matches but plenty of time to accumulate points. While their next two matches are against Washington teams, they are looking forward to playing their Oregon rivals, “We definitely have a rival club. The other Portland UPSL team St. Johns is our big time rival. That game gets circled on the schedule as soon as it comes out. No one from either side wants to to lose that game. It’s almost like a final.” Avery continues, “Most of our guys grew up around Portland while others recently moved to town and we’re looking for a place to play some higher level ball. This season we did bring 2 players from Argentina; Emanuel Grespan who played for Ferro Carril Oeste a 2nd division team down there and Alexis Sanchez who came up through the River Plate system.”

“Deportivo Rose City was founded in 2020 during the pandemic as healthy young men wanted a chance to get out of the house and play some ball. Our goal as a club at this point is to be financially stable, win and have fun,” he says. Just above them, another Portland-based team is having fun too - St Johns FC are in second place with two wins so far and one of those was an opening day shoot out with none other than Deportivo, which ended 2-3. Arturo Bahena leads his club with 4 goals and looks to add to his total when St Johns FC host Bellevue Athletic at Milwaukie High School on Saturday, October 22nd.

We also spoke with Anastacio Rivera of Bellevue Athletic, “Our club was only founded this year, back in February. We hope to bridge the gap between youth development and pro development in the area, and eventually grow the club into USL1 and above. As a note on that, we do plan to keep a team in the UPSL moving forward, whether it’s our top team or eventually reserves or u19s.” Currently, Bellevue are in 4th place - they’ve got five different goal-scorers with one goal each - when asked about who to watch out for, Rivera tells us, “Our players have a very diverse background. We have Washington locals, Brazilians, and a variety of other nationalities. I’ll attach a graphic I made recently to show that… Our players to watch out for this season would be Nicholas Rivera, an all around forward that creates and scores, & Caleb Cho, an all action centerback.”

“We struggled last season, but we’ve come together for the fall with the core group returning with a seasons experience under their belt, and some massive new talent to take us forward. Our biggest improvement has been our new Head Coach Shaun Spencer, who is UEFA A licensed and brings experience from the top levels of England,” said Rivera. They get to put that new core group to the test again this Thursday, October 20th, when they head away to newcomers Primos de Pelaez FC. We asked them about a possible rivalry, “Our rival thus far and the team we enjoy battling the most would have to be Sporting, but they are not playing in the fall. For fall season, I think Cultures would be our rival.”

So, bottom of the table club Primos de Palaez FC, are not in the running as a rival for Bellevue Athletic. Despite being in last place, they have given teams a run for their money so far this season - in week one they went away to Cultures and scored three goals. Former Cultures United striker, Dawda Dibba leads the line and the club with two goals. They have five matches left and there’s no better timing than this week to get going in the right direction.

- by Josh Duder