Dallas Cup soccer returns to Richland

The Dallas Cup is one of the most prestigious youth tournaments among the country, and in the world. This event was founded in 1980 by the Texas Longhorns Soccer Club when they returned the friendship received when the team traveled to Europe previously.

Nine age groups participate from U-12 through U-19, including male and female categories. This tournament is made up of approximately 40% international teams, 40% state-side teams and 20% from Dallas.

This year teams from 20 different countries and six different continents took part in the event.

The Tigres de Nuevo León U-17 team was crowned champion of the Dallas Cup 2023 after defeating U.S Youth Soccer 1-0 in the Toyota Stadium, Frisco on April 8. Diego Porras scored the goal in the 65th minute. The team coached by Luís Ramírez dominated the tournament from beginning to end and only received one goal in the seven games they played. That game was against the English academy Steven Gerrard. The win for Tigres was 3-1.

This is the eighth time coach Luís Ramírez brought a team to the tournament. He felt excited about the championship.

“It was a challenging tournament, with competitive teams and the games were physically demanding,” he said. Ramírez won the U-20 championship in the Dallas Cup in 2021.

About the final match in Frisco, Ramírez said they could control all the phases of the game. “We were the team that proposed the most during the game, such as the previous matches we had a lot of chances to score, but we could score only one thanks to a shot of medium distance.” The leading scorer of the tournament was the Tigres player Diego Ramírez with seven goals.

One of the most outstanding players was Jonathan López. The midfielder mentioned that concentration was the key to getting the title. “We were very organized and smart on the defensive system in our 4-2-3-1. We were 11 players attacking and 11 players defending.”

About the number of goals, López complimented striker Ramírez. “He always is running around the box waiting for a pass to shoot. We trained that every day and he had good luck.”

The Tigres players were not alone. The families of the players traveled from Monterrey to Dallas to support them. Miguelangel Sánchez is the parent of the left-back Miguel Sánchez Jr. He congratulated all the event organizers.

“The Dallas Cup is very famous and prob- ably is the best tournament in level academies in the United States, and Tigres has played very well,”. Sánchez said. Many Tigres fans came by car from Monterrey, and they had a happy ending raising the trophy.

For more on the Dallas Cup, click on the image below to see our newspaper spread in the Richland Chronicle: