Today we’d like to introduce you to Ariana Espinoza.
Hi Ariana, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
It all started with a simple question:
Where can women who love soccer go to play, have fun, and feel part of a community without pressure or high costs?
In the Dallas Fort Worth area, many women shared a similar story. Some had played soccer since they were young, in school or on different teams, but after graduating from high school or college, they no longer had a place where they could continue playing. Others stepped away from the sport after negative experiences with coaches, high expectations, or environments that made them lose the joy they once had for the game. Many others moved to the United States, started a new chapter in their lives, and found themselves looking for new friendships and a place where they could feel connected.
That is how DFW Latinas Fútbol Club was born.
In October 2025, it started as a simple idea: bring together women who shared a love for soccer and create a space where they could play, have fun, and meet new people. At the beginning, most of the participants were Latinas, which is where the name came from. However, as the community continued to grow, it opened its doors to women from different backgrounds, cultures, and nationalities. Today, we speak both Spanish and English, but the language that truly connects us is our love for soccer and our desire to be part of something positive.
From the beginning, the mission was never to create a competitive league or a business. The goal was always to build a community. A place where any woman could show up, regardless of her experience or skill level, and feel welcomed.
Because soccer is not only a sport. It is an opportunity to connect.
Many women joined simply because they wanted to play a game, but they ended up finding something they did not expect: genuine friendships. Some have shared that before joining the club, they did not have a social circle in the area. Today, they have friends they celebrate birthdays with, spend time with outside the field, and support both on and off the soccer field.
That is what makes DFW Latinas Fútbol Club special. We are not only creating teams; we are creating a community.
Throughout this time, we have organized two recreational leagues among ourselves. These leagues were created only for fun, connection, and the opportunity for women to enjoy the sport in a positive environment. Although there is excitement around competition, the main goal has always been to have fun, build friendships, and create a space where teamwork and respect come first.
This entire project has been organized as a nonprofit community initiative. No one involved receives financial profit from it. At the beginning, we searched for free fields whenever possible. As the community grew, we eventually needed to rent fields. When that happened, the players contributed small amounts, usually between $2 and $3 per person, only to cover the cost of the field. Every contribution went directly toward maintaining the space.
After completing our second recreational league, DFW Latinas Fútbol Club will return to the main purpose that inspired its creation: free pick ups and friendly soccer games in Dallas and Fort Worth.
The goal is to create an accessible space where women can simply show up, play soccer, meet new people, and enjoy the sport without money being a barrier. We want every woman who wants to play to have the opportunity, regardless of her background, experience, or level.
In Fort Worth, we have received support from community organizations that share the same vision of promoting women’s sports and creating accessible opportunities. Thanks to this support, we have been able to continue growing. However, in Dallas, we are still looking for partners who believe in this mission and can help us secure one or two hours of free field space during the week so we can continue offering these opportunities to the community.
Because we know there are many women who love soccer but stopped playing because they did not have a place to continue. There are women with talent who never had the opportunity to discover it. There are women who are simply looking for a healthy activity where they can feel supported. And there are women who arrived in a new city without knowing anyone and found a place where they finally felt like they belonged.
DFW Latinas Fútbol Club was created because of a love for soccer, but it has grown because of friendship, connection, and the stories of every woman who has become part of this community.
Because at the end of the day, it is not only about winning games.
It is about creating connections, encouraging teamwork, and showing that sports have the power to bring people together and change lives.
DFW Latinas Fútbol Club is more than just soccer.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has definitely not been a smooth road. From the very beginning, our biggest and most persistent challenge has been finding accessible field space.
When I first started the club while living in Plano, I quickly realized how difficult it was to access public sports facilities. The city has beautiful fields, but almost all of them are commercialized, rented out to private clubs, or tied up in lucrative leagues. I vividly remember taking the girls to a local park with outdoor courts just to play, only to be asked to leave because the space wasn’t rented. It felt incredibly discouraging to realize that community spaces were locked behind corporate walls.
We were told to use the city’s free fields on Mondays and Wednesdays, but those are completely overrun. They operate on a “first-come, first-served” basis, but they are heavily dominated by male players and private coaches running team training sessions. On one rare occasion, a kind manager opened a field for us for a single day.
We even went to a free field in Garland once, and since then, we have been actively looking for fields in different neighboring cities where many of our players live. However, we came to a frustrating realization: in many of these cities, public soccer fields simply do not exist.
The reality in the Dallas area is tough: open fields are scarce, and indoor facilities come with excessive rental costs that contradict our mission as a nonprofit initiative. While we have found Fort Worth to be much more accessible and supportive with community-friendly fields, Dallas remains a major hurdle.
We firmly believe that sports are essential, they keep people active, offer a healthy escape from daily stressors, and bring pure joy. Not having a reliable, free place to play has been a heartbreaking obstacle, but it also fuels our determination to find partners in Dallas who believe in our mission and want to help us change this reality for local women.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My name is Ariana Espinoza. I am originally from Perú, I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in marketing, but my career path has shifted toward healthcare, and I am currently back in school working toward a second bachelor’s degree in nursing. I love both fields, but outside of my studies, my biggest passion is sports, especially soccer. To me, the game is less about winning and more about the valuable, lifelong friendships you build along the way.
The story of how DFW Latinas Fútbol Club came to life is wild. It all started on a quiet afternoon when I decided to post a casual video on my TikTok account. I wanted to see if I could find a few girls in the area to meet up for a friendly game. Here in the U.S., people call them “pickup games,” but back home, we use the slang word “pichanga.”
I chose to use that exact slang word in my video, and that tiny cultural spark changed everything.
To my complete surprise, the video went viral. Suddenly, my inbox was flooded with hundreds of messages from women all over the Dallas-Fort Worth area who instantly recognized that word. They were longing for exactly the same thing I was: a place to play and belong.
At first, I started the project in Plano, but when I saw girls driving in from completely different corners of the metroplex for our very first match, I realized this was bigger than just one city. Because I didn’t have a registration link, I spent days manually replying to every single message on TikTok. I collected phone numbers one by one and organized them myself. To make it easier for everyone to play close to home, I segmented our growing community into specific WhatsApp chat groups for different neighborhoods and cities, including Irving, Garland, Plano, Grand Prairie, Downtown Dallas, Oak Cliff, Arlington, Fort Worth, Mesquite, McKinney, and Lewisville. Through that pure, one by one effort, we built a massive family of over 600 women on WhatsApp.
Launching in the late autumn and moving into winter was a true test of our spirit. The Texas weather turned freezing, but the girls’ enthusiasm never wavered. We pushed through the biting cold together, laughed through the shivers, connected deeply, and even successfully ran our very first winter recreational league.
Soon, the community skyrocketed to a point where I could no longer manage it all on my own. That’s when my incredible leadership team came together. Vanessa Avila stepped up in Fort Worth and quickly became my absolute right hand, taking care of our teams there. To complete our leadership, Vanesa Almeira joined us and is now completely spearheading and leading all operations in Dallas.
Together, both Vanessas have done an outstanding job managing our external collaborations. We’ve been approached by several indoor facilities and have partnered with various local social clubs to keep our community active. In Fort Worth, Vanessa Avila achieved a massive milestone by networking and securing a formal alliance with the City of Fort Worth, alongside a local community organization that deeply supports our mission. Thanks to this incredible support, we have been able to provide completely free pickup games for women in Fort Worth, and we continue to host them regularly.
In Dallas, finding a permanent, completely free space remains a challenge, and we are still actively looking for that perfect field. However, we recently received massive support from City Futsal Dallas, an indoor facility located in Downtown. Thanks to Federico, who is widely known and respected in the soccer community, I was able to connect and form a great alliance. He generously gave us a completely free month of field space at their Dallas location, which the girls absolutely loved.
This collaboration opened up a wonderful new opportunity for women in Dallas called Her Collective, powered and organized entirely by City Futsal. While they normally charge a $15 fee for these 2 hour pickup sessions, we have a special promotional code for our community: DFW Ladies. By using this code, the girls get a discount that brings the price down to $10, with registrations managed directly through their link. It has been incredibly important because it provides local girls with a dedicated, all-female environment to play soccer. Even though we are immensely grateful for this opportunity and celebrate this space, our ultimate goal remains finding a field that is 100% free of charge, ensuring that budget is never a barrier for any woman who wants to join us. Under Vanesa Almeira leadership, we also continue to run fantastic joint events and collaborations with other local social clubs to keep the momentum going in Dallas.
Alongside our league organizers, we sit down regularly to hold meetings and establish clear guidelines. We intentionally protect our environment to ensure it stays respectful and safe. We know that some soccer fields can get overly intense or aggressive, but we fiercely protect our culture: our core motto is all about fun, camaraderie, and positive connection.
What started as a simple, single TikTok video has blossomed into a beautifully diverse, passionate community. It’s a space where money isn’t a barrier, where background doesn’t matter, and where every single woman who steps onto the pitch knows she finally has a place to belong.
Any big plans?
Our ultimate future goal is to secure a dedicated space where girls from all over the metroplex can come and play completely for free, backed by the support of a city or a local organization. We want to replicate the incredible milestone we achieved in Fort Worth, where we now have a consistent space specifically for the girls to play.
Looking back, I feel incredibly proud and happy to see how much women’s soccer has grown. I truly believe we have contributed our own grain of sand to this movement. I remember going to indoor facilities in the past and seeing them almost exclusively filled with men; today, there is a massive, beautiful female presence on the fields, and that is exactly the kind of inclusion we want to keep fostering.
I want to make one thing very clear: absolutely everyone is welcome here. While our community has strong roots, our ultimate goal is to create a space where any woman, from any background, feels invited to step onto the pitch and play. This project is, and will always be, entirely about community, inclusion, and fun. We have absolutely no intention of turning this into a commercial or profitable venture.
In terms of major changes, we aren’t planning to alter our core mission, though we are constantly updating our guidelines to improve the player experience. However, we are currently facing a big strategic decision regarding our recreational league. We now have 16 structured teams, and because the demand from girls wanting to join is so high, managing a league of this scale takes a tremendous amount of resources. We are evaluating whether to continue running the league or to sunset it so we can encourage our teams to apply and compete in other local leagues. If we decide to phase out the league, our focus will shift entirely back to expanding our signature free pickup games across both Fort Worth and Dallas. We are still weighing our options, but whatever we decide, our priority will always remain protecting our pro-fun, welcoming culture.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://msha.ke/futboldfw/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dfwgirlsfc/
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@futboldallas
