Written by Juan Pereira 

Photo Credit: Louisiana Krewe FC (Twitter/X)

Part 1: Building Exposure 

Wade Wallace has been living in Louisiana for 23 years, coming from the North Dallas area. He lived in a household that breathed soccer all throughout them. It became an obsession for him that continued to the land of Crawfish and Mardi Gras. 

“My father was a soccer coach. My brother was a player. I was a player. My sister was a player, and I was coming from a soccer hotbed like North Dallas,” Wallace said. “And then when I moved down here, I could see that there was a lot of work to be done, but there was also a lot of opportunity.”

The Wallace family was one of the founding groups of Louisiana Krewe FC, a club built in connection with Louisiana Dynamo Jrs to help bridge the gap between the amateur and professional game. 

Being a localized club, Wallace has had to become an utilityman, whether it is handling player interviews, newspaper and TV coverage, and finding sponsors. 

This is one of the few similarities that local U.S soccer teams have with their Sunday league companions across the pond in England; the beautiful game has a lot of jobs with not enough people to complete them due to lack of compensation among other factors. 

“I kind of wear a bunch of different hats and with any local club like ourselves in lower league soccer, we have to do a bunch of different roles,”

This type of work isn’t pretty. In sports, the focus of attention is on the players and the coaches, not on the staff that make up the backdrop of every team. For Wallace, he doesn’t care for the attention. All he wants to do is grow the game of soccer down in Louisiana. 

However, as a local soccer club, big-name sponsors and opportunities come few and far between, so the Krewe had to get a little creative when it came to their strategy. 

“Dave and Buster’s, which I’m sure you’re familiar with, opened up a location here (in Lafayette), and when they were designing their location, they put ‘Louisiana Krewe FC’ up on the walls… So, if somebody’s coming in to watch something like a baseball game, they’re sitting down and they’re looking at a TV, and then right on the wall next to it is Louisiana Krewe FC.”

These small wins have allowed Louisiana Krewe FC to build a solid backing of supporters, and the results on the field have merely expanded upon the publicity that the club has worked so hard for. 

The Lafayette-based club won the GCPL Cup in 2021 along with the Western Conference. In 2020, they qualified for the U.S Open Cup, which was one of the best accomplishments in club history despite the tournament being canceled later due to COVID-19. 

It turns out that Wade Wallace has attributed much of this success to Joan Oliva, another Louisiana outsider who’s pedigree speaks for itself. 

“When Joan’s CV came across my email, I actually thought he was kind of pulling my leg. I was so impressed. I thought he was playing a joke on me.”

Part 2: Bred In Barcelona

Joan Oliva’s journey into coaching was as routine as it is intriguing. 

“I started playing soccer when I was a kid. Then, when I was a teenager, I realized I wouldn’t get too much money just playing,” Oliva said. “I was fortunate enough to learn a lot of things when I was young. So then, when I was 24, I started coaching for Barcelona FC Academy.”

At face value, one can understand why Wallace thought that Oliva was out of this team’s league. UEFA Pro License coaches are hard to come by, especially of the kind that have experience at one of the biggest clubs in the world such as FC Barcelona. However, when Oliva traveled abroad, he saw the potential that the U.S had in terms of soccer. 

“I fell in love a little bit with the big room of improvement that U.S soccer has. I felt like a lot of coaches (and) a lot of players wanted to learn more, but they didn’t have the tools to do so; when the option to come here came, I took it,” Oliva said. “When I became a father, I decided that the U.S was a better place for the family.”

The decision to move to Louisiana ended up being a blessing for Oliva, his family, and the soccer scene in Lafayette. 

“Once I arrived in Louisiana, the strong community that we have here, the southern hospitality and the nice families that we met… My wife and I fell in love.”

However, in terms of the quality of soccer being played, Oliva knew that his vision of growing the sport was going to be difficult.

“Soccer was not at the level that I expected, and that’s where the Krewe came into this. We wanted to raise a little bit of the culture. (It was) about building a community around soccer here so they can enjoy the games, they can enjoy the youth clinics, and they can breathe a little bit more of our soccer culture that we have in Europe and bring it here to Louisiana.”

Part 3: What it Means

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that soccer in the U.S is still developing. With Lionel Messi helping MLS grow at a rapid rate, sometimes we forget that there is more to the sport here than multi-billion dollar franchises. Louisiana Krewe FC represents the underdog perfectly.

“We are a good example of what you can make out of starting from ground zero and competing in different competitions, winning trophies, building your program, (and) giving that (pro) pathway. That’s the huge thing in this country, we have a lot of talented players that just don’t have that pathway in place to ever be seen.” Wallace said.

The cup wins and the on-field achievements are secondary when it comes to the vision of this club. Their current roster is built from journeymen, local products, and people who have found a new home in Lafayette. For some, being part of a local soccer club reminds them of home.

People like Joan Oliva and Wade Wallace, who weren’t born in Louisiana, have helped local players reach their full potential rather than wasting their talent. Sadly, these types of clubs are all out there, but few actually pay attention to them. Perhaps, once the U.S stops ignoring these vital parts of soccer development, we will see a true surge in the popularity of the world’s most beautiful game.

“It’s a universal sport and that’s for a reason,” Joan Oliva said. “The U.S has to be there (along with the other big soccer nations). We have a big pool of players (that can) play.”