San Juan Soccer Club

For a while, you think what hurts the most is losing. But then it settles in and you realize that five months from now, they'll all be somewhere else. They’ll step onto new campuses, meet new teammates, settle into unfamiliar rhythms, and begin building lives that are already waiting for them just beyond this ending. The game will keep asking new things of them, just as it should. Time is gentle while living it and cruel in retrospect, allowing an afternoon in Seattle to feel endless before a whistle blows and reveals it was the last.

And that is the part that hurts most. Not because the dream ended, because it did not. The Elite Eight was only where the season stopped, not where their story did. Their lives are opening before them now, exciting and unwritten, and soccer will keep carrying them toward fields, cities, and versions of themselves none of us have met yet. What ended was our time with this version of them.

They arrived as "littles," basically still learning where to stand, whom to follow, and occasionally whether anyone else had forgotten a shin guard. Then time, as rude and deeply unserious as ever, moved through hotel hallways, TikTok trends no adult could actually explain, and all the seemingly ordinary days we were foolish enough to believe would keep coming. Spoiler: they don’t. Time never tells you how fast it is moving until the children you were guiding are suddenly the ones reaching back to guide someone else. We thought soccer was the point, but it was only the place where we were lucky enough to watch them become the extraordinary young women they are today. That they became exceptional players along the way now feels almost beside the point.

To our 2009s: we were lucky to watch it happen. It will always be us.

#WeAreSanJuan | #HeartBeatsHype

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