'Startup Of Soccer': Bay Cities FC Excited For Redwood City Debut

REDWOOD CITY, CA — Bay Cities FC, a new soccer club that is San Mateo County’s first professional sports team, is nearing its home opener at Sequoia High School stadium and hoping to make a strong first impression with a team full of local talent.

The club, which is in the National Independent Soccer Association, started its preseason in mid-February. Their first home game is an exhibition against Xolos Tijuana, the Mexican national farm team, on Mar. 19.

Bay Cities FC’s roster is a mix of veterans and youngsters and primarily Bay Area born and raised, an intentional point that co-founder Anders Perez said is their “stake in the ground.”

“It ingrains ourselves to the community,” Perez said in an interview with Patch last week. “We don’t have a fancy stadium. We’re not a long-standing organization. We want to start from the ground up. We want to start with this generation of individuals.”

Perez envisions the club as similar to the San Jose Giants or Santa Cruz Warriors, providing a pipeline for players who need more development before going to the next level. Bay Cities FC also hopes to bring in as many under-18 players as possible on amateur contracts as to not impact their collegiate eligibility. And it has a women's club playing in the United Women's Soccer League's second division.

“Our goal is to foster and develop players who are here locally,” Perez said. “We want to be a haven, an incubator of sorts — to take a term from the tech world — for these young players so that they can have a pathway as they move forward.”

One of their players with Major League Soccer experience is Christian Dean, an East Palo Alto native who played for several local youth clubs including De Anza Force, Palo Alto FC and Santa Clara Sporting FC before playing collegiately at UC Berkeley.

Dean, 28, spent five years in MLS with the Vancouver Whitecaps and Chicago Fire before injuries led him to an early retirement.

But last year, Dean returned to playing with the Charlotte Independence in the United Soccer League. When Dean saw an opportunity to return to his roots and play for Bay Cities FC, it was a no-brainer.

“It’s an opportunity that I've always wanted,” Dean said. “I get to play at home, in front of my family and friends, win something for them as well as bring something back to the Bay Area, especially to the Peninsula.”

Dean, who hopes to become a coach one day, called Bay Cities FC the “startup of the soccer world” with a unique advantage of being based in a suburb and not a big city. Everyone on the roster either knows each other or is familiar with one another.

“We’ve all grown up in Bay Area soccer and want to progress that,” Dean said. “We all have the one goal that sets us apart from other teams where we all want this to work, while other teams have people coming in from all over.”

'Why Are We Here?'

For Perez, his goal for year one — besides winning on the field — is to grow a local soccer community in the Peninsula. He admitted that it’s been challenging to spread the word because Bay Cities FC is brand new, but he hopes that the community will soon catch on to the organic, grassroots mindset.

“The 'why' is more important than the 'what,'” Perez said. “Why are we here? We’re here to make a change, to bridge communities together, to inspire.”

Perez — who spent seven years running the Redwood City-based youth soccer club Juventus Academy prior to starting Bay Cities FC — hopes that when fans go to their games, they can relate to the players who are from their own community.

“That’s very important to me as a Hispanic, as a minority, as a former youth soccer player — that when I go to watch a game at a higher level, I can see myself there because that inspires me to dream,” Perez said.

That dream came full circle for Dean, who didn’t have the option of playing for a local club like Bay Cities FC when he was growing up — it was either playing for the San Jose Earthquakes or going to college. Bay Cities FC gives players the option to do both. But Dean is back now, albeit a little older, but still excited.

“Growing up, playing in Redwood City — for me it just feels natural to be back here again,” Dean said. “I feel like I'm starting my career over again.”

Visit baycitiesfc.com for more information.