BALTIMORE — Racing Power FC, Baltimore's women's pro-am soccer team, is preparing for the United Women's Soccer East Conference championship this Sunday after a tremendous regular season. The team hopes the Baltimore community will come out to support them as they compete for the title.
"The opportunity to compete for, you know, a championship is, is massive, and I think the girls are excited. The coaching staff is ready. Players are ready," said Val Teixeira, head coach and general manager for Racing Power USA.
Racing Power Football Club is the first division professional women's team in Portugal with a franchise in Baltimore. Their goal is to develop women who are either professionals or aspiring to become professionals.
Baltimore Power FC wants to bring a trophy to Charm City. Hear from coaches and players who are ready for the challenge:
"Our job is to try to develop them and make them ready so they can go overseas and play for our first team. Luckily, the last few years 23 players from our squad have gone overseas. Two of them right now already have contracts to go over once the season is over," Teixeira said.
As a head coach who's won on many levels, nothing makes Teixeira happier than to see these young women achieve their professional dreams.
"Women's soccer is growing a lot in Europe. In the U.S. is very popular, but obviously our goal is to give these young ladies opportunity to get to the next level," he said.
One of those players is Baltimore's own Riley Rumbley, who finished her first season overseas in Italy earlier this year. She says it's incredible to see how much the game has grown domestically and globally, noting it's not as big in Europe for women.
"It's a whole different ball game over there, so to have this connection between women's sports and like this being a way to get there is huge for women's soccer," Rumbley said.
Like any Baltimore native, she's proud of her city and can't wait to represent her hometown this Sunday.
"Let's bring our community together. Baltimore, Smalltimore, man. Everyone knows everyone, let's come out, support our locals," she said. "It would mean so much, you know, we've been in this league for about 2-3 years and we're always there. We have a taste of it every year, but this year I think if we have the support of everyone we've been working really hard. We're really building that chemistry. We've been moving the ball. We can score some great goals, have some great celebrations. I think that winning a championship this year would mean the most to us just because this is the start of a new new club."
The championship game will be Sunday at 6:00 p.m. at Ridley Athletic Complex Stadium on the campus of Loyola University. Admission is free.
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