YAKIMA, WA— Yakima United FC was added into the Evergreen Premier League in January of 2014 after the league put Tri-Cities on hold for the first season. YUFC General Manager Joshua Vega has been scrambling ever since then to make up time. The other seven EPLWA sides were accepted into the new adult elite men’s league early last fall. Vega and the Hops have made big strides in a short period of time. Now they are working on getting the Yakima Valley sports community invested in the team.

“We want to provide an exciting match day experience for our fans, and we’re still working on a few things to help implement this,” Joshua tells goalWA.net. “One thing we’re really excited about is our plan to offer an official club membership. Aside from a traditional season ticket package which we will offer, our fans will have the opportunity to purchase a membership package that will give them multiple perks including some member-exclusive products, discounts, and access to club events that may not be available to others. It’s really exciting and we hope it will help our supporters feel a real ownership and connection to everything that is going on with YUFC.”

Vega is working on an official club website, which will debut soon. The way the schedule fell, YUFC is not only the last club in, but the first to host a match, April 26 at Marquette Stadium against Seattle Stars FC. It’s a good thing the club has gotten early buzz over its hops-inspired crest. “I’d say the response (from the Yakima Valley) has been enthusiastic overall. Unfortunately the reality is we are a few months behind everybody else, maybe as many as six months in some cases. So we are playing a lot of catch up. The crest has helped a lot. The attention it has gotten locally has been a real boost. Other than that we’re relying heavily on social media and local media to help us get the word out in the short time we have left before the season starts.”

Players are training

The Hops are done with the open tryouts process, and are already in training for the campaign. Vega says it’s going well.

“Open tryouts went really well,” he says. “I wouldn’t say numbers-wise we got any more than we expected. But the level of talent and competition was probably a bit higher than we had anticipated. We decided from the outset that everyone would have to tryout. Even guys we may have already had in mind. There were some faces we didn’t recognize that came and showed really well. From the 45 guys we had turn out we have narrowed it down to about 30 we’ve invited to train. From there we’ll have a few more difficult decisions we have to make.”

Attacking football

Along with a popular crest, red and black shirts and flags, and memberships for fans, Yakima is also planning to be very entertaining on the pitch.

“Our goal is to be adaptable in style and formation,” Joshua says. “Head coach Hector Vega and I have talked a lot about how we want to go out and compete. So it’s not so much about style or systems but a more generalized philosophy. We want to play attractive attacking football. We want our players to be confident and calm on the ball. It’s about them being able to express themselves.”

YUFC may be rushing against time as the season approaches, but they have already accomplished plenty since January.

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