Along the San Dieguito River, nestled in Del Mar’s drying brush and quiet suburbia, sit acres of immaculate lawns. They might look like sod farms or the polo grounds they once were, but the fields comprise Surf Sports Park, the seat of a soccer empire.
Surf Soccer began in 1977 as a club team for boys and girls aged 12 to 18, aiming to attract the best youth talent in San Diego’s North County. It has since fanned out as far as Massachusetts and Montana to encompass 55 affiliate clubs across the nation for kids ages 6 to 19. In 2016, Surf Soccer moved into the expansive Surf Sports Park, which hosts several prestigious club tournaments and player showcases each year. Across all its competitions, Surf Soccer serves over 200,000 youth participants annually.
“Everything we’re trying to do is be the best of the best. It’s our mantra,” says Brian Enge, COO of Pioneer Sports & Entertainment, the parent company that controls the Surf Soccer network. “When we have events, we want to make sure it’s the coolest, best experience for kids and for coaches and families. When we run our club, we want to make sure we’re developing the most college players and national team players and winning the most championships.”
These aren’t your typical sports platitudes. Surf Soccer’s top teams compete in the Elite Clubs National League (ECNL), one of the highest levels of youth soccer in the US, and players in the ECNL are recruited by top colleges and professional teams. Surf Soccer features a lot of that talent. Its under-13, U-15, and U-18/19 girls teams are reigning ECNL champions in their respective divisions. Surf Soccer’s U-17 team is the current champion on the boys’ side.
Perhaps no one represents the club’s success better than Melanie Barcenas. A Clairemont native, Barcenas played for Surf Soccer for 10 years, starting at 6 years old. She won several showcases and cup competitions during her time with the club, and she always pushed to play against older girls— and even the boys—which caught the attention of pro scouts. In 2023, the San Diego Wave made Barcenas, then just 15 years old, the youngest signee in the history of the National Women’s Soccer League.
Melanie Barcenas credits her time with the organization for helping her develop the skills to go pro at just 15 years old.
“I think Surf gave me the platform [to turn professional],” Barcenas says. “We were always going to play the best teams. At one point before I went pro, I was playing two years up, and that was a great decision because I got to push myself playing against older girls.”
With the Wave turning over much of its roster this summer, Barcenas is expected to fill a more prominent role for her hometown team, something she’s already done for her country. Barcenas excelled at the 2024 FIFA U-17 World Cup, starting every match, scoring three times, and helping her team to a third-place finish. The Surf Sports alum’s international success reflects the club’s global ambitions.
“If we can run an event in San Diego, why can’t we run an event in Spain and Italy and Morocco?” Enge says. He helped export Surf Soccer’s signature Surf Cup competition to Europe and Africa in 2023. Surf Soccer also maintains partnerships with Manchester City, the dominant force in the English Premier League, and Club América, Mexico’s most successful professional team, to stage showcases in the US.
American soccer has long been the butt of the joke in “world football.” We use a different name for the sport, we play it in the summer, and, at least on the men’s side, we’re underachievers relative to our population size and economic strength. So why are the biggest clubs in the world— and some of the most soccer- mad countries—wanting to align with Surf Soccer?
“First, European clubs and global clubs see the US as a massive consumer market. They want to build their brand,” Enge explains. “The second is player access. Southern California and San Diego have always been a massive part of that. There’s a lot of talent here.”
Not that the organization is letting that get to its head.
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“We never really focus on the growth. We focus on the service, and if the service is there, the growth will come,” Enge says. “We do want to make sure that Surf is a powerful force in the way that youth soccer is developed here in the US, and we want to continue to be a big voice in that. The bigger that we get, the louder voice we get to have. Other than that, we’re just going to focus in on great clubs and great events.”
After all, Surf Soccer may be a major international force, but it’s also just a club team from San Diego.
