A year after 22,838 filled the Cotton Bowl for Club América, Chivas Femenil bring Alicia Cervantes, the leading scorer in their club’s 120-year history, to the Fair’s closing Saturday. 3rd Degree sat down with Club President Charlie Neil earlier this week to discuss the business behind the Clásico.
International Friendly | Saturday, Oct. 17 | 4:00 pm CT | Cotton Bowl, Dallas, TX | Broadcast: TUDN USA (Spanish), Dallas Trinity YouTube (English)
Dallas Trinity closes out the State Fair of Texas on Saturday the way it did a year ago, with a Liga MX Femenil club at the Cotton Bowl. This year it is Chivas Femenil of Guadalajara.
Nothing on Saturday counts toward either club’s league table.
“A record for all women’s sports in our state”
The State Fair Clásico is an annual friendly between Dallas Trinity and a club from Liga MX Femenil, Mexico’s top women’s league. It is played at the Cotton Bowl on the last Saturday of the State Fair of Texas, the 24-day run at Fair Park that already brings Texas-Oklahoma and the Grambling-Prairie View State Fair Classic to the same stadium.
The first one came last October. Club América Femenil won it 3-1 in front of 22,838. Sealey Strawn scored Dallas’s lone goal, a 70th-minute header off a Camryn Lancaster cross.
That crowd was the largest for a professional women’s sporting event in Texas. It passed the 21,284 who watched the Houston Dash host the Kansas City Current in 2022, and the 20,409 who saw the Dallas Wings play the Indiana Fever in June 2025. Club president Charlie Neil called it “a record for all women’s sports in our state.”
Dallas opened this fall in front of 2,041 at the Cotton Bowl, and the announced crowd against DC Power in September was 1,451. One Saturday in October brings the club more than ten times its usual audience.
In announcing this year’s match, Neil said it would “celebrate the deep connection between North Texas and Mexico.”
A little State Fair of Texas
Every match ticket includes same-day admission to the Fair. This year it also includes a ticket to Dallas’s Nov. 21 home finale against Lexington SC.
Neil told 3rd Degree this week that talks with the Fair started a few years back, when the club was first founded. He credited the Fair for seeing the value of women’s sports at the event.
“For us, it’s another opportunity to really make our brand symbiotic with all of the iconic things of this market,” Neil said.
He wants the date to become a fixture. “That last Saturday of the State Fair, we get a little women’s soccer,” he said. “We get a little State Fair of Texas, and it’s a great time on both fronts.”
Fairgoers without a match ticket can trade 10 Fair coupons, or pay $10, at the Cotton Bowl box office to get in. Stadium gates open at 2:30 p.m.
“Have Trinity be your Dallas club”
Going by the shirts, Neil said, most of last year’s crowd wore América’s colors, and he expects Chivas red and white to dominate again.
“As a club, we’re okay with that,” he said. “Support your hometown, or the club that you’ve supported a long time with your family, whether it’s from Mexico City or this year from Guadalajara. But have Trinity be your Dallas club.”
He said the club thinks about converting those buyers, “If not on a daily basis, we think about it often.” The matchday job is an experience that leaves people wanting to learn more about the club. The rest, he said, is community work in underserved areas, built around kids and the women’s game.
“You’ve got the excitement, the introduction, the inspiration of Clásico,” Neil said, “and then it’s the everyday of meeting people where they are.”
He did not give a figure for how many 2025 Clásico buyers came back for a league match. The free Nov. 21 ticket is the club’s most direct attempt at that this year.
“Chivas was not our only option”
“Chivas was not our only option this year,” Neil said. Other Liga MX Femenil clubs reached out after seeing last year’s crowd.
He credited how quickly that league has grown in its first decade. For many of those clubs, Neil said, a trip to Dallas would be their women’s team’s first.
“They love the opportunity with the Cotton Bowl,” he said. “They love the State Fair.”
Neil also said CONCACAF will run an activation at Saturday’s match to promote its W Championship. That tournament opens Nov. 27 at Texas Health Mansfield Stadium, with the United States and Mexico both playing quarterfinals there.
Brand playbook
Dallas will wear the olive-green Live Oak kit for the first and only time. It went on sale Oct. 2 in limited quantities, $89 for adults.
Neil said Live Oak is a color the club has rarely leaned on, though it “has been part of our brand playbook from the beginning.” A one-match kit, he said, “adds to the size of what we’re putting together, the interest, the intrigue.” He credited Nike for its part in the design.
Performance comes first, Neil said, but he wants a shirt people around town are proud to wear. He expects to see more of them on the street after Saturday.
“It sends a strong message”
“It sends a strong message. I say it all the time. Dallas is an amazing sports market,” Neil said, when asked what a crowd of 25,000 or more would tell the city’s decision makers. “We think of ourselves as a top-tier club, not just a Dallas brand, a national brand, a global brand.”
He wants people to “continue to find confidence in investing in what we’re doing, whether that’s time, energy, resources or capital.”
Founded the same day as the league
Club Deportivo Guadalajara dates to 1906 and claims more than 40 million fans across Mexico and the United States. The club is known as El Rebaño Sagrado, the Sacred Flock, and its players as the Rojiblancas for the red-and-white stripes. Like the men’s side, the women’s team fields only Mexican players.
Chivas Femenil was founded on Dec. 5, 2016, the same day Liga MX Femenil was announced. It won the league’s first title, the Apertura 2017, and added the Clausura 2022 and the 2022 Campeón de Campeones. Home is Estadio AKRON in Zapopan, a 2026 World Cup venue.
Liga MX Femenil plays two short seasons a year, the Apertura in the fall and the Clausura in the spring. This fall it split its 18 clubs into two groups of nine, with the top four in each reaching the quarterfinals.
Chivas’s fiercest rival is América, the club that won here last year. The two meet in the Clásico Nacional to close the regular season on Nov. 6 in Guadalajara.
Three clean sheets into the break
Chivas arrive 7-0-3 in the Apertura, with 21 points, 21 goals scored and 11 conceded. They sit second in Group 2, four points behind América with four matches left.
Their three losses came within three weeks. Pachuca came from behind to win 3-1 in Pachuca in August. Pumas won 2-0 at Estadio AKRON, their first win there against Chivas. Rayadas won 3-2 in Guadalajara on Sept. 12.
Chivas have not conceded since, winning 2-0 at Tijuana and 1-0 at Cruz Azul on a Denise Castro strike from outside the box. Samantha López scored the only goal against Juárez before the international break.
Head coach Antonio Contreras, a Spaniard, has been in charge since 2025. He came through that run under heavy criticism in Guadalajara, including public rebukes in September from Tania Morales, a champion with the 2017 title team. His teams usually line up with four at the back, a single holding midfielder, three in midfield and two forwards, and he changes the shape often. Under Contreras, 25 of Chivas’s 37 wins have come with a clean sheet, per the club.
Alicia Cervantes, known to fans as Licha, leads Chivas with seven goals this Apertura. She is Liga MX Femenil’s all-time leading scorer and a three-time scoring champion. In April, her 161st goal for the club made her the top scorer in Club Deportivo Guadalajara’s history, men’s side included.
Around her, Joseline Montoya scored twice in the comeback win that opened the season. Blanca Félix is the usual starter in goal.
Chivas played all three of their 2024 Summer Cup matches in the United States, against Washington, Chicago and Gotham, and have faced Inter Milan in Brownsville and the North Carolina Courage in Cary. Sporting director Nelly Simón said this trip lets the club connect directly with its U.S. fans.
Chivas train in Guadalajara on Friday morning and fly to Dallas after the session. They host Necaxa on Tuesday night at Estadio AKRON. Forward Mia Urbano is in Morocco with Mexico’s U-17s for the World Cup.
Players to Watch: Chivas Femenil
Alicia Cervantes – Seven goals this Apertura, and 38 of her 161 for the club have come with her head. Dallas’s center backs will have to deal with her in the air.
Jasmine Casarez – Has scored in three wins this Apertura, including a header into the top corner against Querétaro in the opener.
Natalia Mauleón – Set up two goals in the 4-0 win at Atlas, including Casarez’s opener. She took over the No. 14 shirt this summer.
Bringing women’s professional soccer home
Dallas Trinity was one of the founding clubs of the USL Super League, the Division I women’s league that kicked off in August 2024. The club is owned by USL Dallas, which launches the men’s Atlético Dallas in the USL Championship next year. Home is the Cotton Bowl, and the team goes by the Golden Girls.
Dallas reached the playoff semifinals in both of the league’s first two seasons. Allie Thornton won the 2024-25 Golden Boot with 13 goals. Last spring’s run ended with a 2-0 semifinal loss at Lexington SC, the eventual champions.
This fall is a standalone sprint season of 14 matches, built to move the league onto a new calendar in 2027. Eight teams play from Aug. 15 to Nov. 28, and the top four reach the semifinals Dec. 5. Dallas sits fourth on 11 points from three wins, two draws and three losses.
The coach is Lee Nguyen, a Richardson native and former U.S. international hired in July for his first head coaching job. Dallas plays a 4-2-3-1 that drops into a back three in possession.
Seven players on the roster have DFW roots. Defender Cyera Hintzen is from Garland, Lancaster from Mansfield, LJ Moore from Dallas, and Sofía Cedeño from Irving.
Captain Sophia Braun is an Argentina international who scored her country’s first goal at the 2023 World Cup. She also started her pro career in Liga MX Femenil, playing 18 matches for Club León in 2023. “I played in that league my first year as a professional, so it’s really special for me,” she said. “I think we’re going to get a great crowd and it’s going to be an amazing game.”
Jasmine Hamid leads the team with four goals. She set Fort Lauderdale’s club record with 13 before joining Dallas in April. Seven Castain, on loan from the Orlando Pride, has three, after tying TCU’s single-season record with 17 goals in 2025. Hamid, Braun and 20-year-old forward Onyeka Gamero all made the league’s September Team of the Month.
Minutes for Flynn and MacNab
Nguyen welcomed the test when the match was announced. “Chivas Femenil brings quality, intensity and a strong competitive identity, which is exactly the kind of test we want for our players,” he said.
The friendly lands between a 1-1 draw at Brooklyn and a trip to DC eight days later. With no points on the line, Nguyen can hand real minutes to players who have spent the fall on the bench or in the treatment room.
Lauren Flynn, a center back who played nine league matches in the spring, is back from a lower-leg injury but sat unused at Brooklyn. Heather MacNab, a forward who can also play left back, has not debuted since signing Aug. 5. A long run against Chivas is the cleanest look Nguyen will get at either before the last six league matches.
At Brooklyn, Dallas held 64 percent of the ball and managed four shots on target. Carissa Boeckmann moved from right back into midfield, with Giulianna Gianino making her debut behind her. Castain played up top beside Hamid in a 4-4-2. Hamid has missed two penalties this fall, one at Sporting JAX and one off the post at Brooklyn.
Meila Brewer is in Morocco with the U.S. U-17s, who open their World Cup against Samoa on Monday. Ally Cook, Rajanah Reed and Chioma Ubogagu are out for the fall. Heather Stainbrook, back in limited training this month, likely will not be available for Nguyen.
Players to Watch: Dallas Trinity
Kalea Eichenberger – The 6-foot forward made her NWSL debut in Utah’s 2026 opener before coming to Dallas. Her fall minutes have come off the bench, and she sat unused at Brooklyn. Her late chance against DC Power drew a save from Katie Cappelletti. “I try to stay ready, and once I’m called on, to impact the game as much as I can,” she said after her debut at Sporting JAX.
Aria Nagai – On loan from Utah, she won a national title at North Carolina in her graduate season after three All-Ivy years at Princeton. Her first start of the fall came at the 10 in the win at Fort Lauderdale. Most of her fall has been late minutes off the bench. “I want to continue to grow into the game and make more of an impact off the bench,” she said in August.
Maddy Anderson – A Seabrook, Texas, native and the 2024 SEC Goalkeeper of the Year at Mississippi State, where she left as the program’s career leader in starts and wins. She kept a clean sheet in RC Lens’ first top-flight league win in France before joining Dallas, and has backed up Neeku Purcell all fall. Saturday puts her in goal against Liga MX Femenil’s all-time leading scorer.
What’s at stake
Last year’s 22,838 is the record the club is trying to beat. Neil said the club “should be continuing to push itself to set records.”
The next match that counts is at DC Power, level with Dallas on 11 points with a game in hand. Brewer will still be in Morocco for that one, so whatever Nguyen learns about his back line on Saturday carries straight into that trip.
The two clubs will play for The Trinity Star – the trophy presented to the winner of the match.
Chivas fly home for Tuesday’s match against Necaxa at Estadio AKRON, the first of four matches left to secure a quarterfinal place.
Projected XIs
Dallas Trinity (4-2-3-1): Anderson; Gianino, Flynn, Cheesman, Coomans; Shepherd, Nagai; Moore, Lancaster, MacNab; Eichenberger
Chivas Femenil (4-2-3-1): H. González; Colín, Ferral, López, Jaramillo; Alvarado, E. González; Valenzuela, Cordulack, Iturbide; Cervantes
Dallas travels to DC Power on Sunday, Oct. 25, for a 2 p.m. CT kickoff at Audi Field.