City officials helped Morales relocate his players to the new Vista Hermosa Park a few blocks away, but they can use the field only for games. Practices are still held nightly at MacArthur Park, and teams such as Castillo's have been pushed to the fringes, where hills grow steeper and light from sidewalk lampposts is blocked by trees.
On game day, parents board buses -- lawn chairs, umbrellas and coolers in hand -- to Vista Hermosa.
Morales said he has searched for space at nearby parks but has had no luck.
The crunch has also displaced adult players, some of whom are traveling to a nearby school, where they reluctantly pay $5 each to a league organizer to play each night.
Players aren't the only ones pointing toward the cordoned-off construction zone with mixed emotions.
"I think this is it," says Maria Palacio, a street vendor unaware of the city's plan. "The end is here."
Every night, the 48-year-old loads her cart with sodas and water to sell to hundreds of thirsty soccer players. On a good night, she makes up to $30.
This week, she arrived to find the dirt parcel empty, save for two backhoes. Only a few dozen players, not the usual hundreds, kicked a ball nearby.
"It's not the end," Morales assures her. "It's the beginning of something that will be very good."
A few years ago, the city tried growing grass on the plot of land that was once a lagoon, but after a few weeks, the soccer players wore the field down to dirt, said Councilman Ed Reyes, whose district includes the park
Plans to resurface the land with artificial turf had languished for nearly a decade, mired by a delay in funding and concerns from preservationists who worried that turning the site into an official soccer field would detract from the park's historic significance.
As a compromise, the project is called a "children's meadow."
To preserve the look of the park, no field lines or equipment will be installed.
Reyes said he would like community soccer teams to begin partnering with surrounding schools to share school fields.
"We need to get to a place where kids get so tired in the daytime that they want to go to sleep at night, not be in the street," he said.
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esmeralda.bermudez@latimes.com
