SoCal Dutch Lions

The Lions are settling into life in the USL W League after moving across from the Women's Premier Soccer League, a transition that has come without any silverware yet to show for it. No league title, cup run or playoff push has marked the team's short history, and the current campaign is still a matter of finding a footing rather than defending anything.

That short history began in January 2021, when the club took the field as Oceanside Dutch Lions FC under Dutch Lions Capital Group USA, Nikhil Erlebach and Mario Fernandez. The Oceanside name lasted little more than a year: in April 2022 the club became SoCal Dutch Lions FC, trading a single city's identity for a claim on the wider region. The switch fits the club's place inside a larger structure — Dutch Lions FC, founded in 2009 by Erik Tammer, Mike Mossel and Peter van der Molen, which has grown into a network of clubs across the United States. SoCal is the eighth of those clubs and the fourth fielding a women's team.

Home games are played at Army and Navy Stadium in Carlsbad, on the grounds of the Army and Navy Academy, though the team has also turned out at La Costa Canyon High School and, further afield, at Pine Park in Long Beach. Orange and blue, the colours carried by every side under the Dutch Lions banner, mark out the SoCal shirt as well.

The Dutch Lions name carries some real pedigree through Rose Lavelle, who came up through the organisation's Dayton team before going on to senior international football — a connection to the SoCal side in name and lineage more than in appearances on its own team sheet, but the kind of thread a young club is glad to have.