From inside his roomy office overlooking the St. Louis CITY SC Academy training grounds, Dale Schilly can see the future.
Schilly, the director of CITY’s Academy, is tasked with overseeing a pipeline that stocks the club with talented young players who may one day soon impact St. Louis’ success at the MLS level. The player development role is something that Schilly takes seriously—and something he’s done well for a long time.
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As he balances the present with the future, Schilly has big plans for CITY’s youth system.
Building the CITY Academy has been a major point of emphasis for the club over the past couple of years. It has already produced MLS minutes out of Miguel Perez and Caden Glover, and team officials are counting on even more contributions in the months and years to come. For a club that has touted the potential for talented local players to earn their way onto the MLS radar, the Academy has been one of its most meaningful investments.
That investment is already paying off, even beyond the rise of Perez, Glover, and other individuals who’ve had the opportunity to mix in with the senior squad. In February, the Academy’s UPSL squad made a run to the UPSL championship game, where it ultimately fell to California-based Chiriaco FC. The result may have been disappointing, but the journey was anything but. Although Chiriaco put in a great performance, it’s a team built with experienced adults who, in some cases, have been playing together for years. That allowed CITY’s roster of prospects to test themselves against strong competition.
“It was a great experience for the players,” Schilly says. “Our oldest player was born in ’05. We had an ‘07 player in there, and they’re playing guys who are 28-to-32 years old. We wanted our guys to experience men’s soccer, not youth soccer.”
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St. Louis’ UPSL squad is the final step for players climbing CITY’s academy ladder, which also features U15, U16, and U17 squads. Having a UPSL squad allows the club to challenge its best young players in highly-competitive game environments that can be hard to recreate.
“When kids are more athletic than their opponent, or they have a big advantage in their technical skills, then they can run the game,” Schilly says. “But when they play a squad with equal levels of athleticism, technical ability, and more experience, then they are going to have to learn how to play against that experience.”
Not every MLS academy system works this way. Others opt, instead, to put players on MLS Next teams, before moving them along to MLS Next Pro, and, finally, MLS.
“When we got into the UPSL, it was not about winning trophies,” Schilly says. “It was about getting as many high-level games as possible. So, when we win our conference and qualify for the tournament, we get an extra eight weeks of training.”
For Schilly, player development is about gaining experience, learning from mistakes, and having opportunities to measure how young talent performs against tougher opponents. The key is maintaining a similar system for players all the way up to CITY’s first team. That takes some extra work.
The St. Louis region has, for years, produced good, athletic players. However, those players have often been asked to play in slower, more possession-based systems. Part of Schilly’s task is ensuring that CITY’s pipeline players develop the skill and endurance to play high-pressure, “heavy-metal football.” That means pushing the pace, while also having the technical skill to make defenders miss through the midfield.
“It’s very difficult to get kids to change their ways,” says Schilly, who was formerly technical director and vice president of the St. Louis Scott Gallagher program. “St. Louis, in general, has been a ball possession-heavy area. You teach them to play more directly, how to press, and what it means to really get after a ball. It’s my belief that the work that our local clubs do for skill development is only going to help the players as they get older in our system.”
As those players get older and better, they’ll have opportunities to earn Homegrown contracts and work their way up to the MLS Next Pro and MLS levels.
“We recognize the positive of it,” Schilly says, “getting players to play as a unit, to understand that this is a team game. Players get sidetracked and start looking at the opportunity, showcasing themselves in hopes of getting a first-team contract, when the best way of earning that contract is to show that you are, as (sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel) puts it, ‘a designated player.’ Sometimes we have to disappoint players, but the hope is that through disappointment comes development.”
Of course, there are only so many spots available. Although some players receive Homegrown contracts, or earn Division I scholarships, not everyone will move on to the next level.
“I think for me, success is whether or not these players continue in the sport—not just playing at the next level, but staying involved in some way,” Schilly says. “We ask a lot out of our players, but we also try to teach them that there Is more to this sport than what you see on the pitch.”
Already, there are plenty of players to follow. Jackson Delkus, Carson Locker, and Tyson Pearce are already on the radar of hardcore CITY fans. The UPSL squad’s run to the final also highlighted others who could become well-known names in the years to come.
“Andy Kohlberg really did well in goal,” Schilly says. “Kai Jaeger played really well in the first game, was asked [to do] a lot in the second game, but hung in there for 90 minutes. Gavin Netzel has improved drastically over the past three years. There were a number of guys that really stepped up throughout this tournament.”
Schilly hopes that his players will keep progressing, whether that’s through the club pathway or through college soccer. One thing, though, is certain: this past UPSL season was a major step forward.
