A mother of a newborn takes a seat at the sideline to watch a game at Elevate Soccer in August.

An unmarked door on the side of a warehouse opens onto an indoor soccer field in southeast Longview. The weekend pickup game at Elevate Soccer is starting; teams are assigned colored pinnies, and a flat-screen display on an articulating arm glares at the field, tabulating wins and bragging rights.

Lining up on the turf in his green jersey is Ming Xuan, 57, from Vietnam. Next to him is Mike Stinson, 43, from Texarkana, Elevate’s two owners, Hector and Marcos Rodriguez — and this sweating, overmatched correspondent.

The clock counts down from 4 minutes. Two goals seal a win, or a loss, which comes mercifully fast. Team White lashes home a shot, then another, and we’re off. Team Blue rotates in.

At this level, a good soccer brain and a clean touch — the ability to settle a ball fired at your body from different directions — matter more than age, gender, or speed. And If anything captures the scene emerging at Elevate’s field, it’s the diversity of players and the many faces on the bench looking on.

There’s a mother with her infant child watching her husband. There are boyfriends, girlfriends and small children enjoying the commotion, practicing their juggling on the sideline.

With Gregg County’s Latino and Asian populations more than doubling since 2000 and soccer carving out its place in the American sports landscape, Elevate’s success is the natural product of a changing Longview.

Memories of backyard soccer games in Mineola imprinted themselves on the minds of two brothers, Hector, 39, and Marcos Rodriguez, 34 — friends, family, neighbors connecting on passes and connecting with each other.

Marcos went on to play professional indoor soccer for the Dallas Sidekicks and Hector to coach high school soccer and teach Spanish. But in the back of their minds and over countless conversations, they wondered how to conjure the spirit of those backyard sessions again.

Those talks became serious as the brothers matured, as did the plan to realize them. In summer 2021, with both Hector and Marcos now coaching high school players and teaching Spanish, they closed on a small property off Texas 149. Financially speaking, “this was a big risk,” said Marcos, though one that’s starting to pay off.

It was a modest start at first for Elevate Soccer. There was a small-sided turf field, portable toilets, a gravel parking lot shrouded by pine trees and space for a food truck.

“We didn’t know what we were doing at first,” Hector said. “It’s not like we went to business school.”

But word of a dedicated, small-sided field travels quickly in a region where soccer facilities lag behind the growth of communities keen to play on them. Soon, the brothers had well-attended youth, adult and 30-and-up tournaments scheduled on a weekly basis. Expanding the facility started to look feasible.

This year, beside the outdoor field rose an aluminum warehouse building with space for another pitch. The brothers’ dream was rendered in metal and turf. It was real.

Both had grown up commuting to Tyler to get their soccer fix. Hector would join back-of-house restaurant workers for a game after the cooks finished work at 11 p.m. But local players won’t have to hunt for other soccer enthusiasts as they had. Here in Longview is a modern pitch, with the casual feel of a backyard session.

Visit Elevate Soccer’s website for more information on pickup soccer schedules or to join a league.