Soccer Filled Fourth of July Weekend at SWUP

Soccer fans will rejoice this Fourth of July weekend as both of the Borderland’s professional soccer teams, FC Juarez and El Paso Locomotive FC, will play at Southwest University Park. Locomotive will host San Antonio FC on Friday night, while the Bravos will face Club Santos Laguna on Saturday night in a friendly preseason match.

These are important matches for each team respectively. The Locos will be looking to possibly move into first place in the standings with a win. Meanwhile, the Bravos will be having their final tune up before the start of the upcoming 2025 apertura season begins next weekend.

El Paso Locomotive faces interstate rival

El Paso Locomotive will host San Antonio FC. These two teams have developed quite the rivalry in recent years and Friday’s match promises to be full of fireworks quite appropriately on the Fourth of July holiday.

El Paso comes into the match in second place in western conference standings of the USL Championship with 23 points on the season as a result six wins, five draws and three loses. The Locos find themselves only two points behind conference leader New Mexico United. The team from the ‘Land of Enchantment’ will travel to the east coast to face the Pittsburgh Riverhounds also on Independence Day. In their most recent outing Locomotive defeated Monterey Bay FC two Saturday’s up in northern California by the score of 2-1.

Meanwhile the visiting team from the Alamo City is currently in fourth place with 21 points as a result of six wins, three draws and five loses. Most recently San Antonio defeated Union Omaha in a USL Jagermeister Cup match 1-0.

While this is officially a Copa Tejas match for Locomotive head coach Wilmer Cabrera, this league match is much more important in other ways, "It's not about the trophies. It's about how important this game is for us. The last time we played at home, we lost, so we need to recover that, and we know that we have a very tough opponent in front of us who are one of the top teams in the Western Conference. It's not going to be easy, but it's going to be a good test for us to see where we are after the break. It's a playoff type of game for us."

Friday’s match will be the first time these two teams face each other in the 2025 season (the second match will come in San Antonio in October). San Antonio FC leads the all-time series with El Paso, 4-5-4, but Los Locos are the current Copa Tejas holders. Locomotive are looking for their first win at home against their in-state rivals since 2021.

The match is scheduled for 7 p.m. MST kickoff. The match will be streamed on ESPN+ along with KVIA.com and the KVIA News App.

FC Juarez returns to El Paso

FC Juarez will return to the Sun City on Saturday night when they face Club Santos Laguna in a friendly. It is the first time the Bravos play in El Paso since approximately one year ago when they hosted Club America in the Sun Bowl.

Juarez has been in pre-season mode for a little bit more than a month. Players reported on May 30th for physical evaluations marking the official start of the preseason. They spent a couple of weeks training at the Bravos facilities before heading to Queretaro to have several training sessions in the central region of Mexico along with a couple of preseason matches. Most recently the Bravos faced New Mexico United in Albuquerque a couple of Wednesdays ago, a match they lost 1-0.

The big off season acquisition for Juarez, if you can call it that, was that of Rodolfo Pizarro. Pizarro was formerly with Mazatlan FC and is a player who has been in a slump in recent years after being one of Mexico’s most promising young players. A stint in the MLS didn’t go as planned. Hopefully Pizarro can regain the spark wearing a Bravos jersey this season.

As for Santos, well they have been one of the worst teams in Mexican soccer in the last couple of years. They will come into Southwest University Park with a lot of intensity as every match for them, preseason or regular season, is an opportunity for them to prove they are turning things around.

Saturday’s match is also scheduled for 7 p.m. MST kickoff. Tickets are available for sale on the El Paso Locomotive FC website and at the Southwest University box office.