Pitch to Pro
Pitch to Pro is the official podcast of Ozark United FC. This will be our platform to tell our story about the club and the special place that we call home, Northwest Arkansas. This is a journey. We want to bring you along for the ride. We'll share what's going on behind the curtain, help educate the community at large about soccer, Our league, and give updates on the progress of the club along the way.
Together, we'll explore and unpack our journey to professional soccer, the magic that is NWA, our community, and talk all things soccer from on the pitch to behind the scenes, telling the story of our club.
Pitch to Pro
Ep. 48 - NWA to FIFA: Where Local Met Global
Soccer history unfolded right here in Northwest Arkansas as the Outrigger Challenge Cup brought FIFA-sanctioned international matches to Springdale. Kevin Tello, Ozark United FC MLS Next Technical Director, joins host Wes Harris to break down this landmark event that put our region on the global soccer map.
The tournament featured the senior men’s national teams of Turks and Caicos and the US Virgin Islands, along with the Marshall Islands and Ozark United FC’s U19 academy team, which stepped in as a last-minute addition. What followed was nothing short of extraordinary – under-19 academy players jumping out to 2–0 leads against established FIFA nations, the Marshall Islands competing in their first-ever international fixtures, and a celebration of soccer that united our diverse community.
Kevin provides an insider's perspective on what it meant for our U19 players to face professional athletes in high-stakes competition. These weren't exhibition matches – the intensity was real, with bone-crunching tackles, heated exchanges, and the kind of pressure most players don't experience until college or beyond. The experience proved invaluable as our young athletes faced the realities of international competition, learning lessons about game management and mental fortitude that will serve them for years to come.
The conversation shifts to Ozark United FC's exciting MLS Next program, which has drawn incredible talent from across the region. With approximately 100 players trying out for each age group and final rosters representing 16 different clubs and 12 high schools, the academy truly unites Northwest Arkansas soccer. Kevin explains the upcoming season structure, which begins September 6th with home matches in Siloam Springs, and outlines the developmental philosophy guiding each age group.
Most importantly, Kevin articulates the mission driving everything Ozark United FC does – creating pathways, providing opportunities, and elevating the game in our region. Whether players aspire to join MLS academies, earn college scholarships, or simply become the best they can be, Ozark United FC is building structures that make these dreams accessible right here at home.
Join us for this riveting conversation about soccer's past, present, and future in Northwest Arkansas. Then come experience it yourself at our upcoming MLS Next matches starting this September!
Pitch to Pro is the official podcast of Ozark United FC. This will be our platform to tell our story about the club and the special place that we call home, Northwest Arkansas. This is a journey we want to bring you along for the ride. We'll share what's going on behind the curtain, help educate the community at large about soccer, our league, and give updates on the progress of the club along the way. Together, we'll explore and unpack our journey to professional soccer, the magic that is NWA, our community, and talk all things soccer from on the pitch to behind the scenes, telling the story of our club.
Speaker 2:Pitch to Pro podcast is proudly sponsored by PodcastVideoscom. Podcastvideoscom is Northwest Arkansas' premier podcast recording studio, equipped with industry-leading equipment. The recording studio and services save you time, money and hassle. They are dedicated to helping you create, record and publish high-quality podcasts for your audience. Be sure to check them out today at podcastvideoscom. Hello everybody and welcome back to the Pitch the Pro podcast. I'm your host, wes Harris, managing Director for Ozark United FC, northwest Arkansas's professional soccer club, playing in the United Soccer League. Guys, I'm really excited about today's discussion. We had a big week last week here in Northwest Arkansas for soccer and for one of our communities in particular especially. So to help me kind of break this down, is our guest today OZFC MLS. Next Technical Director, mr Kevin Tao. Kevin, thanks for being here with me today, man, I'm excited to talk about some stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks, wes Thanks for having me so last week big, big week for soccer and the Marshallese community in Northwest Arkansas in particular. Big week for soccer in general, but especially for those people. So remind people what was Outrigger Challenge Cup and give people a quick overview of what it was.
Speaker 3:Yeah, outrigger tournament kind of put together by kind of Lloyd and the RMI Federation to you know, have these first ever international matches for the Marshall Islands played. Super cool. That Springdale was kind of the spot for this because for me growing up in Northwest Arkansas you know I'm from Siloam I would have never imagined just to see, you know, international soccer being played here. And to Arkansas, you know I'm from Siloam I would have never imagined just to see, you know, international soccer being played here and to see you know what was it like? Five or six international matches here. You know we were able to take a part in a closed door scrimmage as well with the 19s. It was awesome and it was, you know, something that I saw, especially that opening game, that opening night. Like so many people were there. It was awesome atmosphere. It just makes me super hopeful of like what else is to come from an event like that and just the buzz around, like you said, soccer in general in North Arkansas.
Speaker 2:So who are the teams that we had here, remind everybody? So we obviously had the Marshall Islands who were the host kind of organizers of the tournament.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we had the Marshall Islands, which it was cool that they kind of formed this team and were able to compete. I saw a lot of proud Marshallese people in the community. We had the Turks and Caicos Senior Men's National Team and then the US Virgin Islands Senior Men's National Team, and we were fortunate enough to have our 19s get offered a spot to play in the tournament as well, so our under 19s are able to play in some games. They played against the Turks and Caicos national team, USVI national team and then we played the closed-door scrimmage with the Marshall Islands. So good atmosphere yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so to remind everybody, Guam was supposed to come. They had a scheduled conflict and maybe a month or two to go kind of had to back out and we were asked if we could fill a spot. That way we could get more games for these teams. And what a cool opportunity it was for those boys in the U19.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean not last minute addition. And again, for some of these boys, when would they have ever gotten that experience To play FIFA, international football, against professional players that are doing it? That's so cool, that's so huge.
Speaker 2:These were not their B-squads, no, these are first team men's national, like grown men, national team FIFA recognized FIFA nations. Some of these players are professionals. I mean, almost all of them are professionals. Yeah, almost all of them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know, talking to some of their coaches, they did not bring in like another youth level team, Like they brought in their guys. And I think it was cool like seeing USVI kind of win the tournament, Like they were celebrating because it did mean something to them. You know. Oh yeah, it was a huge tournament to them. So I think it was cool to kind of number one again have that here, but also like have our guys compete in it and so they can see what the level looks like, especially as we kind of hopefully in the next couple of years transition into a professional academy. Like, hey, this is the standard and this is a level. And again, that opening day, like all of our academies were there and the kids from the U13s to the U17s saw the U19s represent, and it was awesome to get them to start making those little connections in their brain of like, hey, this is the standard once you get there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean the level in the matches was so good, it was so cool, it was awesome. There were some big boy challenges thrown as well. Too Well, there were some big boy challenges.
Speaker 3:There was some big boy banter.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:And the guys needed to step up to the moment and they did.
Speaker 3:You know, they, they had, they led in both games with which was one men's national teams like and it's not like, oh we, you know they got an own goal, or they scored a fluke goal, like we earned the pks that we got, and then why it was able to score an incredible goal, akulele's.
Speaker 3:Akulele has been able to score some incredible goals as well and it's, it was awesome to kind of lead. But then you know, from a coaching perspective, then you see, like that maturity aspect of it, right, these guys, again, they're men and they've been doing it for a while. This is their career. They're able to kind of bring the game back and then take the lead and win it, whether it was in PKs, like or you know, kind of a what was it like two minutes left when the SVI took the lead, and then obviously we went on to try to get the equalizer, send everyone up and they scored the fourth. So, again, all learning moments that are huge, where me now shifting gears, being a division one coach before this. Like, players don't learn those lessons until they either get minutes their freshman year of college or, you know, later down the line, once you're a sophomore and junior, then you get that experience.
Speaker 2:Experience like now they have it going into their senior year of high school. You know, yeah, yeah, and that's so cool. So I mean you started talking about those coaching moments in those little moments. So let's kind of break down each game. Uh, that the u19s played, uh, let's start with. You know, we'll go in order, so. So we played first Turks and Caicos on Thursday night and just kind of walk everybody through. What was the result? What did you see? Like I know Dean and Scott were more like the on field coaches, right, but like I think that that actually gives you a cool perspective to have been able to just like sit back and watch, yeah Right, and and truly absorb and and kind of analyze the game a little bit.
Speaker 3:So from your perspective, yeah, it was funny because I I told my wife I was like man, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to sit in the stands, I just want to watch. And sure enough, I found my way on the bench and, and you know I was, I was getting into the banter and getting up and yelling and coaching. I just couldn't help myself. But, um, it was cool to see kind of dean obviously is a really a really successful coach. Obviously, I know he's going to do incredible things at NYC. He's already doing incredible things for the 19s. He's having them play in the 3-5-2, which is different for most of these kids. Right, they grew up playing a four-back system, whether it's 4-3-3 or some formation, and a four in the back. So it was cool to see them kind of start to make those connections. But to make those connections. But you know, like you said, when we came out we didn't know I was part of those pregame talks with Dean and Scott and we didn't know we were just like hey, go in, go compete. You know we were kind of like this has never happened before, right, this has never happened here. These Arkansas kids have never seen this. Like what do we do? And we ended up taking the lead. Know, wyatt Marksbury, incredible run down the line, gets a PK, calls for us, and then you know Akalele Campbell's, just you know he's a finisher and he's able to find the net anywhere he is and he was able to convert a PK. The game keeps going on and same thing, wyatt Marksbury just gets a wide, you know breakaway and able to finish it. You know he does it in high school all the time, he does it in club all the time. And now he's like boom, easy transition to international stage. You know, yeah, um, and as the game kind of carried on, this is where, like the inexperience of these boys coming kicks in it's we're leading 2-0. They're not pressing us. Okay, cool, and you know I'm gonna sit on the ball and chill and relax, but they're still wanting to go, go, go. Because again for them it's like oh man, we're leading, let's go get more, let's go get more. And it we talked to them at halftime and it was, it was understandable for them to kind of want that, but they had to like start to understand. Now it's like, at this level it's about what do you need to do to win the game? You know, like being smart, being savvy. You know we all, we all see, like when maria was at chelsea, and you know you would waste some time every now and then and the ball boys won't give the ball like those are all parts of the game, right, like these guys have to understand that.
Speaker 3:And I think, as the game went on, turks and cacos was good about being, you know, a senior men's national team and chipping at what we were trying to do and building out of the back and everything. We made some young mistakes and tie it. And then we were lucky enough to once turks and cacos took the lead, to again get another PK call tied. It was awesome to see once we scored that PK. All of our OZFC Academy, all of our fans, the hell benders were there and just everyone cheering the guys on the sideline. They went over and celebrated with them. This is super cool.
Speaker 3:And then you know we we took Turks and Caicos to PKs and just unlucky, you know when, just unlucky. You know, when our players slipped on the PK. The turf monster got them. Yeah, the turf monster got them. And you know we told the guys like it's nothing to be upset about. You know, be proud. Yeah, one unlucky event kept you from winning this game and that's part of the game. So they were super upbeat. After the game we were excited to kind of see what was going to happen on Saturday. But as we transition now to USVI, that was a hot game. That was very hot. That was one of the hottest games I think I've ever been a part of in my coaching career.
Speaker 3:So kudos to both teams and, honestly, marshall Islands and Turks playing before us, because that was incredible.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:We didn't know how they were going to come out. Typically there's always a slump on a second game like that. But again the boys responded, incredibly, we were leading 2-0. And I think we were leading 2-0. And then we kept it tied until like the 88th, 86th minute, something like that.
Speaker 3:Man, that game to me reminded me of a Division I game because of the physicality, the banter, the reffing wasn't the best. But that's neither here nor there. But it was an opportunity for the guys to see. You know, a challenge like that, like where are you going to see a challenge like that playing in normal club football, normal high school soccer? Like you're not right. And then again, inexperience, they sent two out to the corner. We only sent one. They were able to take advantage of that, scored a beautiful goal. You know, just kind of took a small touch, bent it back post and then, like I said earlier, we pushed all our numbers up trying to get the equalizer and they were able to counter and get a fourth. Yeah, but I think for me that the USVI game it was so important for them to see because they were like man, these real men are talking crap to us and they're coming in so hard.
Speaker 2:Dude, there were some major collisions in that game.
Speaker 3:And they were arguing too, like USVI was like in our face arguing, yelling, and our guys were like, oh crap, what do I do? You know? Like it can be intimidating, yeah, yeah. And then afterwards we all chicaned and we were fine and that's just part of the game. Yeah, you know, it's just part of the game.
Speaker 2:So yeah For somebody that, yeah, I mean we only have two, there's only like like very small, like the majority of them are still in high school, yeah, and to be in that type of an environment in a match, like that's a what like we keep saying it, but like what an experience. And I mean, like I'm not kidding guys Like I've watched a lot of soccer and there was one in particular, I think it was on Geo at the back. Oh yeah, like where they scored their first goal. That should have been called a foul, but you know, whatever Things happen, right, yeah, you got flipped upside down. Oh my God, like bodies are just doing horizontal, flat spin 360s in the air from the collision, you know, and just absolutely pounded. Like it was a physical, tough, like hot. Yeah, match of football, like it was.
Speaker 3:It was incredible, it was an incredible experience for those boys yeah, yeah and, and the cool thing is obviously they had that experience and then getting ready for two college games. You know, yeah, play a college on wednesday and then they're going to play another college on saturday and it's like man, what better way to get this experience before our mls next season than playing against number one older players? But I think the biggest thing is like players that are more experienced, that are maybe going to take advantage of some of the things that you hadn't really thought about playing high school and playing club soccer. Now they're starting to understand that and that's our goal.
Speaker 3:With talking to Dean and Scott, it's like how can we prepare these guys for the next level? Obviously, everyone that I talk to. It's like what are our ambitions with the academy? It's like, obviously these guys are unlucky or they're gonna be gone by the time the pro team comes. But it's like, do we get them ready for college to continue to succeed beyond that? You know, once they graduate or even before then, if they're an option for the first team suite, or even, you know, maybe they sign an academy contract and they're with us over the summer. We never know.
Speaker 2:But our job is to prepare these guys for when that time comes yeah, for whatever that, whatever that next level is for them, whether it's college, whether it's if somehow we get our first team going like great, or somehow there's another academy somewhere yeah, exactly, fantastic.
Speaker 2:We're not the only professional soccer team in America Right, or other places Right Like there's. You know, I know a couple of our, or one of our players at least, over the summer had a trial over in Spain in like the second division or something like that. So it's just about prepping them for that next level and helping them on a pathway and a journey. So you know, I do, before we jump into that's a good segue into kind of MLS Next program and we'll dive in. But I do just want to take a quick moment and celebrate the Marshallese community and the Marshall Islands team, because this was I can't overstate what a moment this has, this was and what it did for this team and those players and the fans and the community. I mean it was so cool to see the amount of folks Marshallese, nwa, but it's like there were people from all over the world that traveled in to support the Marshall Islands.
Speaker 3:I mean the Men in. Blazers did a segment on it, Men in.
Speaker 2:Blazers did a segment on it, like they did some social media. There's continuation of that, like they were in the newsletter, like this is a massive deal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was funny because, like I would say, I was doing what everyone does and I was doing scrolling. Yeah, like some big soccer influencers were also talking about it, you know, and I was like, man, this is so cool that it is, it's a, it's a super huge thing, or like it's such an underrepresented community and like the global stage and athletics, and now they're able to have this and not only that, man, they competed like it's not like they got killed.
Speaker 3:No, it's not like they're losing 14-0, like they competed and they like. For me, I was like man, I being from north of sargent, so I was proud of them. I can only imagine like being from the marshall islands and saying your national team accomplished this, being first time ever, and then also like doing well, yeah I mean nil for the usvi, but that I mean they were usvi by far and away.
Speaker 2:It was like the best team in the tournament. They deserve to win. Um, turks and cagos is no slaps. Let me like just be like very clear. But you know, if I had to give an edge, it was probably the usvi. Yeah, uh, but so nil four, but like that it could have been well, you know and here's the thing everybody's like dean was a part of their staff as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and they tried to play. Like you could have easily like, hey, we're going to sit in the back and just try to hope for something, but no, they tried to play, they hit the post. Yeah, good for them. They wanted to play some proper soccer and they did. And I think on Saturday we saw kind of the benefits of that because, well, it was tied right. I got there later.
Speaker 2:I got there later but I don't know that it was ever tied.
Speaker 2:But they did come back and they scored their first ever goals. Yeah, like people again we can't overstate for having never, ever played an 11 v 11 match and you're going up against senior national teams Half, almost half of the Marshall Islands team had never played even 11 v 11 in an official match, like they were futsal players. They were futsal players, yeah, which is just bonkers, like that's wild. And so to have scored from the run of play on their first goal was just nuts. And then to have done the work to to get a p to kind of bring it back and close to three, two and you know there was a questionable, you know could have gone either way, Like PK call at the end where you could have even tied, like are you serious?
Speaker 2:So it's just, it was so unbelievably cool for me as a soccer fan and just fan of our community to have witnessed that and be a part of that and like, say you were there. Yeah, like I can't think of hearing about or whatever reading a internet, a nation's first ever, you know, official soccer match, 11 B 11. And we were here for that. Then we witnessed it.
Speaker 3:I mean there's not. There's not very many. There's not very many where they can say, hey, you're going to be a part of their first ever soccer team. There's not very many where they can say, hey, you're going to be a part of their first ever soccer team.
Speaker 2:There's not many, if any, and I mean Marshall Islands is yeah, and so I mean just all the way around USVI, turks and Caicos, marshall Islands, the U19s for OZFC, every single one of them coming in, competing, doing so well, representing their countries and their teams and their communities, heads held high Like it was such a cool event to have here in Northwest Arkansas. It was unreal that this was happening and hopefully, and the intent, I know, is to make this an annual thing and I just, I only hope it gets bigger.
Speaker 1:Yeah so.
Speaker 3:Yeah, even if obviously we're not in it anymore, like it's gonna be awesome, like we're gonna tell our kids to continue to go and support and be a part of this Cause. It's so, it's so awesome to have this here. I mean, it's, it's like the gold cup, it's like Copa America. You know, like this is a. This is an international tournament. You know it's like that's here, that's here in Northwest Arkansas. You know, in Springdale high school. Like who would have thought of that?
Speaker 2:You. So again, just major shout out to the Marshallese community and the Marshall Island Soccer Federation and all the work that they've done to get to that point. Just a massive congratulations, huge. So moving on to MLS, next program and the U13s, all the way to the U19s, you guys have done a ton of work to start this program, hold evals, start training and start doing schedules and, like start organizing friendlies. Like talk everybody through, let's take a step back. We haven't really. You know, we talked about it before eval started. Yeah, a lot has happened since then. So walk people through, like let's go back to evals. What was that like? We had insane turnout. Just talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was awesome to see. I think I sent you the numbers the other day. I think we had about 100 kids per team, per age group, come out to tryouts. Obviously I'm kind of from here, but now I left and I'm stepping back into the space so I don't know any of the kids. But from talking to the coaches that were there helping us, it was like man, this was like the who's who in our area and not just that. But I mean I think we had like five or six different states, you know, kids at tryouts, whether it was they were planning on commuting or moving here for work or they just heard about it. You know I saw two Memphis kids on there. You know I was coming from Memphis and I saw two Memphis kids on our registration and they were there. So it was cool to see.
Speaker 3:It was crazy, it was hectic. I, you know, did everything that we could to kind of make sure we were giving them the opportunity to eval in front of us. It was a two day thing and you know we're hoping that we can kind of make that a little bit easier and identify maybe some talent a little bit earlier going into next year's, but it was awesome to see all the talent there. Um, I think we had probably about eight coaches within each age group. Help us, kind of like, sort it out. This is who we, you know, this is who we think, this is who we think, and then we kind of move them around to kind of help them, have them play with each other, and then our mls next coaches, you know, pick, pick their teams from what they saw, what they needed. But after that, once we've selected our teams, obviously I respect my coaches too. They had stuff coming on, they had vacations or whatever. I was leading kind of some trainings with them in the morning super early, before it got crazy hot throughout the summer.
Speaker 3:And to say that the level surprised me would be an understatement, because I was like, oh, it's've known it. I've seen, obviously, mls. Next I've seen high level ecls, but like, the way that these kids play surprised me because we have some ballers in northwest arkansas that are techie, that are athletic, that understand the game at a high level, and now it's been super cool to see them all on the same team where every other every other year they've been, you know, opponents, whether it's opposing high schools or opposing clubs, like they've always played against each other and now they're in the same space, getting, you know, trainings at a high level, competing against each other. We keep talking about like these hard tackles at these games, like we see them in training, you know, like hard tackles that are trying to make each other better. And it's been, it's been awesome to see but that was kind of our summer it's like in the meeting sessions getting a better picture of all the players, building relationships with the parents, with them, kind of building the stress Cause.
Speaker 3:At the end of the day, we're we're a brand new club, you know. You know that they need to benefit. You know it's not, it's not just our way. You know there's not just one way to get there. Like, if you need private training, there's private training. If you need, you know, a different club, then there's a different club. You know, cause that was some of the conversations during child's as well, as like, oh, we don't know, if it's a good fit, then cool. You know this isn't for everyone. What we're trying to do isn't for everyone, it's for a specific, unique need in Northwest Arkansas that everyone knows is needed. Mls Next is needed in Northwest Arkansas because it's hard to find high level games, and now we're in a division and a conference where we're guaranteed 50% home games, you know. So we're not having to travel everywhere and be crazy and spend all this money. It's hey, 50 of our time is going to be at home, which is awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's so cool too and and I do you hit on something I want to just reiterate and kind of talk about it. There's kids from everywhere. There's kids from everywhere, not just the tryouts, but also like that made the team go. Yeah, like we we talked about on our united teens alone, there were, there are not, were are 12 high schools represented on a roster that's just over 20. Yeah, I think we're like too. Yeah, that's nuts, it's truly representative. Like this is like yeah, you may have one team or age group that over indexes from a certain club. Like guys, we have players from. We had players from over 24 clubs, and I'm including wreck in that yeah yeah, uh, that tried out and sick over six.
Speaker 2:I think it's 16 clubs represented in actual rosters.
Speaker 3:That's incredible yeah, and then you could you talk about right, we had some players that had never played club soccer, that made teams. Yeah, you know that. That were just so cool, by the way. Yeah, you know that they came out and they just killed it. You know they killed it against these kids that had been playing club their whole life or whatever. And, man, this is what this is. You know, let's, let's go find these kids that you know need this and having it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, provide the pathway and the opportunity.
Speaker 3:Provide the pathway right you keep talking about it provide that opportunity for them, and obviously with that, we we have scholarships and things like that that that make this affordable for everyone. But it was, it was so cool to see that because for me, that was me. I grew up playing rec, you know, and then I went on to play college soccer and then now, you know, I went in and coached division one. But it was like I would have never imagined something like this being in the area, where it's like high level training, high level environment for everyone. You know, it's not just who can afford it, it's for everyone, for everyone.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. We have gotten into some. You know we did the optional trainings which almost everybody showed up if they, it just shows the commitment and how hungry these players are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was like, yeah, let me do this, I'll think I'll have like 15, you know, guys, it'll be easy, and there's days I had 40, 45. I was like holy crap, I wrote a session. But it was awesome. It was good to see them be committed because again, they want this, you know.
Speaker 2:And now we're starting to get into some friendlies, yeah, and so talk a little bit about like the process of kind of pre-season and you know what you guys are doing, feeling looking for season upcoming with our first season at MLS Next.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we have some friendlies coming up. The U19s and U17s both have friendlies against some universities coming up, which will be good, obviously, with the U17s it's cool because typically you don't see a college friendly until your senior year. And then me talking to my college buddies sometimes that's too late. It's too late for them to get that experience and get that exposure or even that recruitability. For our younger age groups it was super cool because the Heartland, which is the MLS Next Conference just north of us, they were like hey, we want to host something where we play against you guys, you guys play against me. So we're coming together on this Saturday the 23rd to kind of play that. So we're going together on this Saturday the 23rd to kind of play that. So we're going to get some good games against that.
Speaker 3:And then our 16s and 15s you're talking to different local clubs and ECNL teams to kind of get these scrimmages in either during the week, during training times, or on Saturdays. I know they're going down to Little Rock. The 15s are on Saturday. Shout out, little Rock. He used to coach for the Rangers, so, um, it's cool to have that connection there. But again, we just want to get some some good competition. It's a high level competition before we transition into our mls next regular season start of september awesome.
Speaker 2:So who are some of the teams that are in our conference? Uh, again, mls, next second tier or new competition tier, have they officially announced? Uh, the, can we say it?
Speaker 3:We can say it because I've seen it everywhere. Mls Next hasn't made a post about it, but they have transitioned to two divisions the homegrown division and the academy division. Homegrown is the MLS academies and some of the blue chips in MLS Next, and then the academy division is kind of the way that I step into these meetings with MLS Next. It's kind of what we talk about. They want to make soccer for everyone, so they want to make MLS Next for everyone. So they've branched out to a ton of different clubs like us that are new into this space or that may be in some different regions that are tough to get high level games. We have a long list of technical standards that we have to maintain and keep in order to keep our MLS next standing. But for us, teams that are in our conference, it's Tulsa, oklahoma City, dallas teams, austin teams, houston teams and then there's a team in Baton Rouge. So it's kind of regional, but still there's some travel to our scheduling.
Speaker 3:The MLS is going to have a regional tournament between us and, again, the conference just north of us. That's sometime in our regular season. They haven't announced dates yet. What's been super cool to hear them kind of speak about their reason for the academy division is with the younger age groups. They want to really emphasize the recruiting aspect of it for MLS academies. So they're going to do an event Columbus Day weekend in some MLS facility and they're going to invite 50 players from each age group to come to those kind of a combine. So it depends how well you do as these scouts come to our academy division games. But also they're working on different ways for the players to record themselves doing different drills, send that to a specific app that they want us to download and then from there, seeing how we've been training, we're hopeful that we'll be able to form really competitive teams within this new division as well.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Actual season starts in September, is you know? I know that we are going to have, you know, a good amount of games and we will post the games. I promise there are Kevin can attest there's things that get moved and shifted and so we just we want to feel like we have things in a good spot before we post out what the schedule is going to be. But we will make sure and shout loud and proud and post about when and where games are going to be here in NWA, but it should be that first weekend in September, I think.
Speaker 3:September 6th is our first game. The month of September we're home. The month of October we're away. And then the rest of the November, december, we're home. So cool. So again, 50, 50, awesome the way they did it. We have a couple games in january as well, but again, for me it's like everything I've heard is like man, it's so hard to find good games, you're gonna have to travel everywhere all this, and then here we are just 50. You know it's super cool.
Speaker 3:Um, the first games are gonna be right now. I can say that they're gonna be Siloam. We just want to make this kind of more accessible to everyone to come watch MLS. Next, siloam Springs FC and the Siloam Springs Chamber of Commerce have been awesome about kind of letting us use their facilities, letting us use their field space, so we'll spend that weekend over there. That's also the weekend we're playing the Oklahoma teams, so we kind of wanted to, you know, give them, throw them a bone a little bit and make it a little bit easier travel for them. They're looking at doing the same for us, whether it's just outside of Tulsa or maybe a little bit outside of Oklahoma City, for us to not have to travel as far, but they're going to be at Sager Creek, right behind Silent Springs High School, and then we're looking at maybe using Silent Springs High School Stadium for some of the games as well.
Speaker 2:That's super cool. So any kind of. I guess it would vary by coach or team and just where they're at, as well as age group, right. But if you could kind of break down for everybody what you guys are thinking about like goals for the season and I know that that is a very open-ended and crazy rabbit hole question, or could be, yeah, but talk a little bit about that as your guys are going into the first season like, what are you guys talking about as coaches? Like, what does success look like?
Speaker 3:Success looks like? I can tell you right now, for probably the three oldest age groups, it's we want to win. You know, we're at that point in their careers. Where can we compete? Can we win? You know, yes, we want to continue to develop them. Yes, we want them to get better at the game and stuff. But can we go into these games? Can we compete? You know, we feel like with the three oldest age groups, we're in a good position to. You know, compete within MLS. Next, again, with the players that have come, that have joined us, and everything With the three younger age groups, everything with the three younger age groups.
Speaker 3:Our, our main goal is the development side. When we talk goals, it's what exposure can we get these players? Obviously we're not. You know, we're not selling them a dream of like oh, if you play for us, we're going to send you to an mls academy. That's not what we're doing, but we want to give them that exposure. You know, we want you guys to understand, as a u13, u1415, this is the pathway, this is what you need to do. These are the steps.
Speaker 2:These are the standards, this is the level.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly this is what it's like this is what it looks like. You know, it was funny. My 14s had a game on Saturday and I made a scout on the opponent and they were like I sent it to them and they were like they've never seen it before. What is this? What do you mean? I need to know what their kickoff routine looks like. They have a kickoff routine and I was like, yeah, these are the things we need to talk about and understand. So for them, it's like how can we prepare them for what's next? Whether it is, for us, it's like it could be a tier one, mls Next, that's not an MLS affiliate, or it could be an MLS Academy. We want to bring those players and promote them as much as possible in that space and I think our goal is like, hey, can we just start those conversations? Whether it's with Kansas City, atlanta United, nashville, of one or two of our players, for us that's a successful fall. That's a successful fall.
Speaker 2:You know that's a successful season. That's our goal right now. No, it's so cool. Um, it is building pathways, providing opportunities. That's it, man. That's all we're here to try to do elevate the game, grow the game, build pathways, provide opportunities. Yeah, so I just, um, I'm really excited. I'm super excited for how the scheduling turned out, because I know that, like there was a lot of questions in the air with that. It could have been. There was some talk about some neutral site game like that's. But I'm at least, knock on wood, like excited for at least how it's starting to look to shake out, which is really really cool and fun for the community, families, fans, and I can't wait to be out at the first home match weekend.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's going to be. It's going to be awesome again that for us it's it's a little rivalry with Tulsa, so I think it's going to be awesome to kind of finally see those teams play each other. You know, like obviously we know the staff over there, they know us, they know our guys, we know their guys like super cool First weekend. And obviously we work really well with the guys over there as well, and I'm from Siloam, so what better way to start?
Speaker 2:than that, absolutely Well, kevin, thank you so much for joining me today. Man, I really appreciate your insights, and thanks again for everything that you're doing and helping to everything that we said Grow the game, elevate the game, provide that, provide that pathway, help, you know, elevate the coaching experience and, and you know, in our in Northwest Arkansas, uh, and for everything that you did in help for Outburger Cup, uh, and everything that went down there that was so cool, uh, again to see and be a part of.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I mean shout out to my staff. You know those guys um Thomas Christian Wayne, tj Scott Dean. You know those guys um thomas christian wayne, tj scott dean. You know julio, like everyone that was out there, um put it in on a shift. You know, like casey was out there on saturday trying to cover for people around. Like it was super cool for me to see of like we talk about unifying and everything and like the players need to support each other, but, like my staff, super awesome about supporting each other that was the other thing too.
Speaker 2:Real quick, like I, I will. Also. I want to give a shout out to the staff, uh, coaching staff at ozfc. Guys, there was like seven or eight, nine coaches on the bench.
Speaker 3:At one point we were all on the roster but they were all just like man, I want to help, how do, how do I help? How do I help? So Dean had some different guys, had different jobs, whether it was like set pieces or whatever. Like you know, lead warmups, you know like which?
Speaker 2:was so cool. Yeah, like super easy, right For coaches to just be like, oh, I'm going to bring my team and support and like that would have been a check the box and great yeah. But no, it's like it just tells me how excited you know and ready people are to just jump in headfirst and like how can I help? Where can I go?
Speaker 3:Well, exactly Like that's all I heard from the coaches this week with Al Reager. It's like what do you need, how can I help and what do you need? And I was like, dude, sweet, like that's what our players need to do on the field now, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, exactly so.
Speaker 2:Anyway, just a massive shout out to everybody OZFC, marshall Islands, usvi, turks and Caicos, springdale High School. Big shout out, like massive for hosting Mount Sequoia. Anybody else that was involved, that I'm forgetting like incredible, incredible week. So I'm just super fortunate to have been able to be a part of it and be here in some small way. So that'll do it for this episode of Pitch the Pro. We hope you enjoyed it. Be sure to catch all of our episodes on PitchTheProcom or look for Pitch the Pro on YouTube, spotify, Apple, wherever you get your podcasts, for more content Until next time. Cheers, northwest Arkansas.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us on this episode of the Pitch to Pro podcast. Be sure to tune in again in two weeks for the next installment and check out the Stoppage Time series for a recap of today's episode. Be sure to find us at Pitch to Pro on YouTube, instagram and everywhere you get your podcasts. Until next time, northwest Arkansas cheers.