Photography courtesy St. Louis CITY SC
On the first play of the United States Men’s National Team’s run at the 2022 FIFA World Cup, one St. Louis native kicked the ball to another. Josh Sargent and Tim Ream rose through the local soccer pipeline and used it as a springboard to the sport’s grandest stage, a nod to the quality of instruction and development they received as youngsters in the St. Louis region.
In the coming years, St. Louis CITY SC wants to make sure more kids in the area have the foundational skills necessary to follow a similar path, if they choose.
Ahead of its inaugural season in Major League Soccer, CITY has launched a free program that aims to make soccer training accessible to every child who wants to play. The CITY Futures initiative includes Soccer 101 popup clinics and weekly Way To Play sessions that introduce technical skills to girls and boys of various experience levels in a no-pressure, welcoming environment.
“With St. Louis being the soccer capital, we want to make sure that all kids are exposed to the sport,” says Barbra Silva, the club’s director of community relations. “Many people know about soccer, but they may not necessarily play it, or they may not have attended a match. We want to make sure that all kids—not just the kids who have access to travel or club teams—have quality instruction.”
Photography courtesy St. Louis CITY SC
The fledgling franchise designed the program as a direct response to the pay-to-play models that have taken over the youth sports landscape in recent years. Every training event is offered at no cost, and tiered to ensure that each individual receives instruction that is commensurate with their experience on the field. For some kids, Way To Play sessions are an entry point to the sport. For others, instruction is a little more advanced.
“We want to challenge kids who have already played soccer for longer, and we want to keep them in the program,” says Adam Brown, CITY Futures Way To Play manager. “So we’re trying to cater both to those who have never played before, as well as kids who might already play in a different league. This can be additional training for them.”
For outdoor Way To Play sessions in 2022, CITY hosted five satellite locations spread throughout the region during spring, summer, and fall. More than 500 kids participated in the outdoor training events during the program’s first year, and more are enrolling for indoor sessions this winter. That means 500 more kiddos are dreaming of scoring big goals and key plays on a big stage. It also means that hundreds of young minds have been exposed to another core focus of the program: life skills. Brown and Silva say that the Futures program is using soccer as a vessel for teaching social and emotional concepts that will benefit players on and off the field.
“We always start sessions with a circle where the kids do meditative breathing exercises to work on focus,” Brown says. “At the end, we have a discussion with the kids where we ask questions about what they learned and how they might take that into other aspects of their lives. We’re always trying to make that connection.”
And, in the process, help make organized sports a little more accessible for everyone.
“Sports are a unifier,” Silva says. “They’re a global unifier. Whether a child ends up playing sports in college or beyond, what’s most important is that the sport becomes a part of them. This is an opportunity to do that.”
St. Louis CITY SC’s CITY Futures Indoor Way to Play program kicked off the winter season on December 12 in the North and Central regions, and will launch on January 9 for the West, South and East regions. The CITY Futures Way to Play indoor training program will be held at 17 participating schools in the region for eight weeks. Registration for the Indoor Way-to-Play sessions for West, South and East will open for registration on December 26.
