{"id":21140,"date":"2023-12-07T11:37:16","date_gmt":"2023-12-07T18:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/?p=21140"},"modified":"2023-12-07T11:37:22","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T18:37:22","slug":"football-fields-on-fairgrounds-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/football-fields-on-fairgrounds-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Santa Clara County and SJ Earthquakes Partner to Build Soccer Fields at Fairgrounds"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_21141\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-21141\" style=\"width: 1280px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-21141 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/soccer.jpg\" alt=\"Santa Clara County and SJ Earthquakes Partner to Build Soccer Fields at Fairgrounds\" width=\"1280\" height=\"817\" srcset=\"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/soccer.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/soccer-300x191.jpg 300w, https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/soccer-1024x654.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/soccer-768x490.jpg 768w, https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/soccer-18x12.jpg 18w, https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/soccer-150x96.jpg 150w, https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/soccer-696x444.jpg 696w, https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/soccer-1068x682.jpg 1068w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-21141\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The San Jose Earthquakes soccer team is partnering with Santa Clara County and the City of San Jose to build new soccer fields at the Fairgrounds.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>By Thomas Hughes. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baycitynews.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bay City News<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The San Jose Earthquakes soccer team is partnering with Santa Clara County and the City of San Jose to build new professional soccer fields and a training facility at the County Fairgrounds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The plan was announced at a news conference at the fairgrounds on Wednesday with city and county elected officials and representatives of the Earthquakes, who detailed a plan to install eight fields that could be shared by the Major League Soccer team and the public.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Earthquakes midfielder Edwyn Mendoza, 17, said the fields will give young people in the community the opportunity to train alongside professionals and see their practice routines up close.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI grew up in San Jose, so this facility will be a game-changer, not only for the Earthquakes players, but also for the kids in my community who have a great time playing the sport they love,\u201d Mendoza said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cFor them, having the opportunity to play on courses right next to the professionals they admire will serve as a visual reminder that they can follow their dreams and make them a reality one day,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The proposal would have the county lease 30 acres at Umbarger and Monterey roads. Four public fields would be built on 16 acres, the team would lease the other 14 acres and build a 35,000-square-foot training facility that will house locker rooms and weight rooms, a dining hall, a theater, a medical treatment center, offices and more.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez, who spearheaded the project, said at the news conference that the new fields would further connect the community to the fairgrounds as a public resource.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cPutting this project here is very important because it shows the public that this area really belongs to everyone and the neighborhood that surrounds this community, how important it is to have recreation that is safe and healthy for our children,\u201d Chavez said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said finding fields for youth teams to play on is a persistent challenge in the city, and that up to 50 fields would have to be built to meet demand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThis is a community resource that is desperately needed in San Jose,\u201d Mahan said. He said he hoped the facility would become a regional destination for youth soccer and for residents to enjoy the sport.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Earthquakes head coach Luchi Gonzalez took time to run heading drills with some of the kids who attended Wednesday&#039;s event. He said the team was committed to training and recruiting local players.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI have worked across the country, and as soccer continues to grow in the United States, I have witnessed firsthand how important it is for community fields to be connected to their local professional clubs,\u201d Gonzalez said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">San Jose City Councilmembers Dev Davis, Bien Doan, Peter Ortiz and Omar Torres also attended the news conference, along with Santa Clara County Supervisor Susan Ellenberg and Earthquakes President Jared Shawlee.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The team, county and city have until October 2024 to finalize negotiations for the project under an agreement reached in April.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>You may be interested in:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/trans-students\/\">Trans students will be able to play on teams that align with their gender identity: Biden proposes<\/a><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Por Thomas Hughes. Bay City News. El equipo de f\u00fatbol soccer San Jos\u00e9 Earthquakes se est\u00e1n asociando con el condado de Santa Clara y la ciudad de San Jos\u00e9 para construir nuevos campos de f\u00fatbol profesional y un centro de entrenamiento al recinto ferial del condado. El plan fue anunciado en una conferencia de prensa [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":21141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,13,306],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21140","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cover","8":"category-sports","9":"category-santa-clara"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21140"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21143,"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21140\/revisions\/21143"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}