The neon yellow t-shirts the Dallas area-based club wore in their pre-game warm-ups (think: traffic worker safety vests) hearkened back to kits worn by Baltimore amateurs Christos FC who went on a run for the ages in 2017, eventually losing out to DC United of Major League Soccer (MLS). They also resembled the shirts worn by NTX Rayados – Dallas area neighbors and friends of these D’Feeters who squared up to eventual champions Houston Dynamo in the 2018 Fourth Round.
“There’s not much difference between our game shirts and our practice jerseys,” chuckled 21-year-old Sebastian Mendez, who scored in the tense 3-2 victory. “And sometimes we wear those in games.”
Upset on Paper Only
The opening-day result against the Diablos was described by some as the first upset of this year’s Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. But the D’feeters, an amateur team who play in the United Premier Soccer League (UPSL) and fancy their chances against anyone, don’t think so.
“We don’t have all the fancy gear – the jackets and stuff. We just show up to play,” added Miguel Ojeda, the team’s 25-year-old captain and midfielder – a 9to5 stock broker at a local brokerage house. “We don’t pay attention to the aesthetics of it. We just go out and do what we love to do. We show up and play and let that play do the talking.”
And like Christos and the Rayados before them, DKSC’s play has quite a bit to say.
The D’Feeters went up by three goals in the first half before the Diablos pulled two back ahead of the halftime whistle. And while the opening period was a joyful explosion of attack, the second was a darker affair with three red cards. The D’Feeters, playing down a man for 15 minutes, proving they know lots of ways to win.
“We knew we were gonna’ have to hold hard,” said Mendez, discovered by manager Edgar Hernandez in local pick-up games and the highly competitive men’s leagues in and around Dallas. “We knew we had to go into defense mode and hang on in the second half.”
All For One and One for All
“One thing about us is we play our hearts out,” added Mendez, who’s also a veteran of local so-called cash tournaments – a kind of underground all-star circuit with the area’s best players swapping teams in search of the best combinations (and the best results). “We go all the way with you if you play us.”
Byass, a youth coach by day, is a legend of the lower leagues, with stints in Finland and with both the Portland Timbers and Seattle Sounders’ U-23 teams. He scored an outrageous 57 goals in 58 games with UPSL side Foro SC and, against the Diablos, he never felt the pressure.
“I was never worried,” dismissed Byass, who admits to using some of the Diablos’ pre-game trash talk on social media as motivation. “Even when we went down a man. I knew we’d figure it out.”
It’s a feeling shared by his captain Ojeda. He describes this D’Feeters team – formed in 2018 when two local area youth clubs joined with a men’s league team from the nearby town of Harrington – as a “brotherhood,”
“We went down a man and were absorbing pressure, but I just looked at my center-back and we just kind of said at the same time: ‘we’re gonna’ grind this out,’” Ojeda said.
