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OmegaBall, the unorthodox game that pulls players from semi-professional soccer leagues and clubs and has been growing in popularity internationally, hosted its two-day Money Ball Tournament at the SDSU Sports Deck this weekend.
The event began with a women’s exhibition match on Friday featuring the San Diego Soccer Women’s organization. Three men’s matches followed to kick off the tournament, which continued on Saturday and culminated in a $25,000 prize for the winners.
OmegaBall, which shares similarities with soccer, introduces a unique twist to the traditional game. Instead of having a full field, you get a circular shape that encompasses half the turf. The game is played with three teams, three goals, and 15 players who compete for control of one ball. There are no throw-ins, but players can do “Edge Kicks” from the side, like a corner kick.
The match consists of three periods, each lasting 13 minutes and the speed of the game is much quicker, with goals often being scored quickly. Each team can score on both of the opponent’s goals, as long as they defend their own goal, just like in traditional soccer.
However, OmegaBall does not have offsides, which is one of the reasons the sport was created in 2020.
“It was all in an effort to get rid of offsides,” founder and former SDSU alum Anthony Dittmann said. At the time, people were talking about soccer being the next big American sport. He liked it but wasn’t fanatical about it.
“Offsides is one of the things that irks me about traditional soccer,” he said. “We’re pulling goals off the board because one guy is ahead of the other guy … I understand the reason for the rule in some regards, but nonetheless, wanted to rethink it.”
The design of the field was also intentional.
“I thought maybe a round field would create that opportunity to get rid of offsides, but I put a goal at the top, goal at the bottom,” Dittmann said. “The flow is still more south even with the curved sidelines but adding a third team would create that circular pay that I was trying to create to get rid of offsides.”
To achieve the right balance, Dittman experimented with the number of players on the field.
“We did a test the first time we played it, the field was a little bigger and we had eight players [per team],” Dittmann said. “And after the first period, we went down to seven players and this was a test match with Energy FC which was a USL team in Oklahoma City. So our first test match was with professional players [and] it was during COVID, so they weren’t doing the regular games so it was pretty convenient. Then we went down to six and then we ultimately ended up at five being the best.”
OmegaBall officially launched in 2022, with the participation of former MLS Real Salt Laker player Ricky Lopez-Espin. He now maintains a connection to OmegaBall.
“I played professionally for six years, now I’m a broadcaster and I actually played the first event just to kind of get a feel and kind of understand what it’s all about,” Lopez-Espin said. “And then now I’m just in the broadcast booth for the last couple of events that we’ve done.”
It was a bit of a transition for him, coming from a traditional soccer background.
“It’s a lot faster, three teams, space is a lot tighter, you have to be quicker on your mind, your feet, “Lopez-Espin said. “So it really gave me a good understanding and a good appreciation for the game and I think I understand it a lot better now.”
The first match in San Diego, on Friday, was an exhibition match from the women’s division. The teams did not have official names, but instead relied on their jersey colors: blue, purple, and red.
All three teams started the game trying to score on either goal. The match featured only two referees and substitutions were made by calling out to teammates and swapping others in; there was no stoppage in play, and the referee did not interfere with the substitution process.
By the end of the match, the red team won with nine goals, while the blue and purple teams each scored three. The second match of the tournament was the first men’s division game, featuring the green, dark blue, and black teams.
From the start of the first period, the green team was the favored team to win as they scored four goals in the first period while dark blue had one goal and black had zero.
The green team continued their momentum going into the second period as they scored seven more goals while the black team scored two goals.
Going into the third period, the green team got quiet and didn’t score any goals. The black team took over the momentum and scored four goals in the third period as dark blue scored one goal.
By the end of the match, the green team finished with a total of 11 goals, dark blue had two goals and the black team scored six goals.
The third match of the evening was the teal, red, and orange teams. Like the previous game, all three teams were quick to score in the first period.
At the end of the first period, orange led with five goals with the red team trailing behind with four and teal with two.
In the second period, the red team took over, scoring six more goals. The orange team also added seven more goals. The teal team was not able to score any goal in the second period but they changed that up moving onto the last period of the match.
In the third period, all three teams scored. Teal led the third period scoring six goals, while Orange scored five and Red added three.
The final score was orange with 17 goals, red team with 13 goals, and teal with eight goals.
By the end of the tournament, the purple team in the women’s division won the $10,000 prize. Following the women’s championship game was the men’s, where the orange team claimed the title and the $15,000 prize.

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