I'm Johanna Bejarano and this is Northwest Public Broadcasting Weekly News Now and we are here with Alfredo Alcantara, a cofounder of the TC Badgers, the new soccer team of Tri-Cities.

Alfredo?

Hi.

Good morning.

Thank you guys for coming out here and thank you guys for helping, you know, shoot some video and some capturing some of the footage of our guys out there trying their best.

And so, yeah, thank you, guys.

Okay.

Tell me more about the TC Badgers.

So the TC Badgers is a brand new soccer club here representing Tri-Cities.

We will be representing Tri-Cities in Washington State play for the Evergreen Premier League.

It's a semiprofessional team, semiprofessional soccer league.

We start and debut in May.

Preseason starts next month.

But yeah, hopefully we can put a great group of guys together so that we get really good opportunities for everybody who wants to move up in play.

And so that's what we're here for.

We're here to give opportunities to everybody.

As you said, there is a lot of talent in central Washington.

Here in the Tri-Cities, we have teams in Sunnyside in a Prosser, Grandview.

How will this new team have this talent to go forward.

Essentially, what we want to provide is an additional stepping stone on everybody's career path.

So essentially, a lot of people here play collegiate level, play high school levels.

And there's a ton of great talent, like you said, in all of our surrounding areas.

And effectively, this is just going to give them another step closer to the professional level, right.

And so this isn't the final point in their career.

This is just another stepping stone for them.

And so that's what we provide.

Okay.

And finally, Alfredo, we started the tryouts today, so how do you see the players and what is next?

So, we saw a lot of great talent out there.

A lot of guys really surprised us.

A lot of guys really put in a lot of hard work to really showcase what they can do and really showcase their skills.

And so honestly, I am incredibly impressed in their capabilities.

I'm incredibly impressed in their disciplines and and what they were able to show today.

And so I look forward to tomorrow.

Tomorrow, we're going to be doing a little bit different.

Today we focused on small side.

Tomorrow we should be focusing a little bit on the bigger picture.

So I'm really excited to see what they can do tomorrow.

Thank you so much, Alfredo.

And you can find more information about the TC Badgers on our website NWPB.org.

And also find us on Facebook I'm Johanna Bejarano with Weekly News Now.