{"id":1236,"date":"2026-06-12T04:34:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T04:34:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hawaiimovinginsider.com\/?p=1236"},"modified":"2026-06-12T04:34:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T04:34:46","slug":"hawaii-youth-soccer-players-look-to-world-cup-for-inspiration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hawaiimovinginsider.com\/?p=1236","title":{"rendered":"Hawaii youth soccer players look to World Cup for inspiration"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<section>\n<p>HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) &#8211; The World Cup has officially kicked off and youth soccer players in Hawaii are more excited than ever.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/hawaiimovinginsider.com\/?p=1234\">Neighbors remember 70-year-old killed in Liliha as \u2018genuinely good guy\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to play in the World Cup someday,\u201d said Talon James.<\/p>\n<p>The keiki kickers for the Honolulu Bulls soccer club take the sport \u2014 and its stars \u2014 very seriously.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI like to watch (Lionel) Messi play. I want Argentina to win,\u201d said Hayley Smith.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Jaxson Gray said, \u201cI love (Cristiano) Ronaldo 100% better than Messi.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They may each have a favorite player, but they still have something in common. They\u2019ll be watching the World Cup and learning from it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m a defender, so I can watch other defenders do their job so it can help me in my game,\u201d said James.<\/p>\n<p>Honolulu Bulls girls program director Sage Aoki said, \u201cA lot of times at practice, players will be calling out players names or their favorite players when they\u2019re dribbling or when they score a goal and that\u2019s the type of stuff that we like to see.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Bulls are the oldest active soccer club in Hawaii, training some of Oahu\u2019s best strikers, fullbacks, and goalies since 1975.<\/p>\n<p>For some players, soccer is more than just a sport that they love, it can be the reason they keep fighting even during the toughest of times.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI love soccer like more than anything. I never wanted to quit, even if I had heart surgery,\u201d said Ellie Matsuda.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/hawaiimovinginsider.com\/?p=1232\">Trump restores commercial fishing access in Pacific marine monuments<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Matsuda is a fighter who didn\u2019t let a heart defect stop her.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s tetralogy of Fallot because I was missing a pulmonary valve,\u201d said Matsuda.<\/p>\n<p>That meant blood did not efficiently flow to her lungs.<\/p>\n<p>Matsuda had her first heart surgery at 10 weeks old, and then again at the age of 7.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was super scared for my heart surgery before and I\u2019m happy that I got over it,\u201d said Matsuda.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Just two months later, she was back to being a force on the field, and she hasn\u2019t looked back since.<\/p>\n<p>So far, she\u2019s scored over 100 goals with the Bulls, and has even gotten invitations to play in Barcelona.<\/p>\n<p>Next week, Matsuda and the rest of her team will be competing in the SurfCup Northwest Tournament in Seattle, one of the host cities for the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor a lot of the kids this is their first World Cup that they\u2019re going to truly get to experience and now with the added part of some of it being in the U.S., fortunately some of our kids will be traveling to tournaments in and around cities where they will get to experience that passion and environment,\u201d said Aoki.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Telemundo Hawaii is your home for World Cup action.<\/p>\n<p>You can watch games in Spanish starting Friday all the way to the final matches in July.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/hawaiimovinginsider.com\/?p=1230\">Hanalei murder victim identified; suspect charged<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Tune in on Spectrum 1022 or Hawaiian Telcom 1013.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>World Cup fever is rising in Hawaii as Honolulu Bulls youth players watch the pros in action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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