South El Monte High School opens its doors to new members for the Girls Soccer team. This year has been very different, unlike no other including many new aspects such as new faces and new protocols, but unlike anything else, this change was most significant for the girl’s soccer team. 

On September 23, 2021,  Coach Alex Rosales announced his retirement to the returning students from the team. This was a surprising announcement. All of the returning varsity girls were affected by this announcement. This was very unexpected to the players, “My thoughts on when he announced his retirement was like ‘Oh damn what are we going to do now?’ The program thrived because of him,” stated senior goalkeeper and forward Daisy Razon. 

On the evening of Thursday, November 4, 2021, Coach Salvador “Chava” Moran, accompanied by his nephew Antonio Toress, were announced to be the new coaches for the girl’s soccer team. Instantly they felt a different type of vibe as they saw the coach setting up cones for drills and many of the girls on the team were thrilled to see what the future held for the girl’s soccer team, and this new era led by the management of Coach Salvador “Chava” Moran.

Coach “Chava” Moran is the assistant coach for the Los Angles Force, a Major League Soccer team that represents LA, and is also the coach for Rio Hondo’s Men’s soccer team, making this the first girls soccer team he has coached. Since this is the first girl’s soccer team that Coach Moran will lead, he’s striving for great goals this season. “I will not fail them, we will continue to work hard to convert this program into the best in the region,” said Coach Moran.

Coach Salvador Moran has been coaching since he was about 21 years old. He has been coaching for 20 years. Salvador Moran’s coaching experience all started with a knee injury that he suffered. Coach Moran stated, “When I was 23 I suffered a knee injury but I never stopped going to my games… The team owner told me if I wanted to coach while I was recovering so I did, and I fell in love with coaching and haven’t stopped since then.”

 Coach Antonio Torres’ interest in coaching for the girl’s JV team began because he loved the sport, and he wanted to spread his knowledge to the younger generations so their parents would see the beauty in the sport, and the kids would feel happy and more confident when they noticed their improvement. Antonio said, “I was motivated to become a coach because I see this as a chance and opportunity to get to show new people that soccer is fun and joy of playing the sport.”

 This season will be full of surprises with many challenges along the way. The Lady Eagles Soccer Team now has a new coach with professional and collegiate credentials that should make things interesting going into the new season.