There’s a new player among top soccer clubs in Washington.

Pacific Northwest Soccer Club (PacNW SC) was formed from a merger of Greater Renton FC and Dos FC. The partnership should provide local players with even more opportunities.

“It’s been a vision of mine since I started coaching with Greater Renton,” said PacNW SC Technical Director Leighton O’Brien. “We had these medium-sized clubs training in the same place; it made sense to create a bigger club to challenge even better teams.”

Both of the existing clubs focused their training at Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila and shared borders. The new club will draw mainly from Renton, Kent, Newcastle and parts of Issaquah. O’Brien emphasized that it’s central location makes it convenient for a much bigger geographic area.

The new club will have about 700 players. Former Liberty girls soccer coach Malia Arrant is the Director of Coaching.

“We’re going to be doing different things that I think will make us stand out among other clubs in the state,” O’Brien said.

The first, and possibly most difficult, step will be to integrate the coaches and players from both clubs into the same system.

“Any time there’s big change there will probably be a little push back,” O’Brien said. “But we’ll limit that by communicating well.”

O’Brien played professionally from 2000-2008, including four years with the Seattle Sounders. He played soccer for the University of San Diego, where he won the West Coast Conference MVP his senior season. He has coached with Greater Renton FC since 2007.

Jamie Giger, who coached the Liberty girls soccer team to the 3A state title game last fall, will also be coaching with PacNW SC.

Tryouts for the club take place throughout May. For schedules and more information, go to Pacificnorthwestsoccerclub.org.