Lincoln’s varsity boys’ soccer team new assistant coach is anything but a new face. Coach Pablo Dipascuale has played and watched soccer all his life, never relinquishing his passion for the game.

    He and his younger brother Facundo grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where soccer’s influence is practically a religion to some. They later immigrated to the Northwest when Pablo and Facundo were 11 and 9 years old respectively. Both of them attended Lakeridge High School in Oregon and won the state championships for boys’ soccer in 2004. After graduation, the brothers went on to play soccer in college and Facundo planned on playing after college as well. But Pablo focused on becoming a Spanish teacher after graduating.

    Pablo graduated from the University of Portland in 2012 with an bachelor’s degree (‘10) and a Masters of Education (‘12). A year later, he started teaching Spanish at Lincoln, just as Facundo joined the U-23 Seattle Sounders. Last year, Pablo was coaching the youth soccer club FC Portland for his third year and Facundo started as Lincoln’s head boys’ varsity soccer coach.

    Because of his experience at FC Portland, he was offered a chance to work with Facundo and other assistant coach Michael Jamieson.

    He talked to The Cardinal Times about how he hopes to improve the team.  His responses were edited for clarity and brevity.

Q: What is your experience playing soccer

A: I’ve played soccer practically all my life. At this point, I occasionally play amateur soccer against former college athletes and other players at that level.

Q: What is your soccer coaching background?

A: I’ve been coaching soccer since 2011 in FC Portland Academy. I have coached at different levels of boys and girls (U-11 and U​​-14 through U-18).

Q: Do you think you will work well with your brother?

A: I haven’t directly coached with Facundo, but I think working together will be a good fit.

Q: What are the challenges for the upcoming season and how can you overcome them?

A: The biggest challenge will be to determine what our style of play will be. But the important thing is to compete with every rival, although at times they will have a more developed playing style and may pose more challenges than we may expect. Really, it’s about being a tough team to play against.

Q: What are your hopes and expectations for your players?

A: Everyone’s general expectation is always the same – win the state championship. But for me, it is also important that each individual develops as a player, student, and, most of all, as a person.