It’s hard to deny that 2,400 soccer kids and 150 soccer teams makes soccer a major player in Tracy sports.

The season opened Saturday with nearly 5,000 soccer moms, dads and kids sporting their team colors at the Tracy Youth Soccer League’s annual Day on the Green season-opening festivities at Lincoln Park.

From 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., kids kicked, shouldered and headed their way through a grueling — but fun — regimen of team photos, demonstration games and a traditional “carbo-loading” pancake breakfast.

“It’s really gotten big,” event organizer Darlene Wilharm said. “I figure we’ve got 2,400 kids in the league — with another 200 kids on a waiting list.”

It’s not that Tracy’s youth soccer team won’t take the kids for athletic reasons, she said.

“Every kid who signs up makes the team,” she said.

There are so many kids in Tracy looking for a team that there simply are too few spaces.

Saturday’s event culminated in a trophy ceremony for the best handmade team banner. Of course, the Vivacious Vixens took it all again this year, boasted assistant coach and chief banner-maker Margaret Crock.

“We’re getting pretty good at making these now,” she said. “Judges like all the little stuff, like the pink frills.”

“Now that we’ve won all the awards,” Crock said, “let’s see if we can will all the games.”

The Vixens are looking forward to a solid year, but they’ll have to go through the Flaming Chicas first, Chicas coach Dan Mathisen said.

“I’ve been doing this since 1988,” he said.

But why Flaming Chicas

“Because it sounds cool,” said Matty Bains, 13, a proud Chica.

While the Chicas might have had a cool name, they — like the Ghost Riders and hundreds of other teams out Saturday — had a tough time competing in the banner contest because the Vixens’ banners were professionally made by an airbrush artist.