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
Stoppage Time Special: Building Soccer Dreams in NWA
Soccer history unfolded right in our backyard as the Marshall Islands national team made its international debut at Springdale High School in Northwest Arkansas. What makes this story extraordinary isn't just the debut itself, but the remarkable spirit and progress shown by a team where nearly half the players had never competed in an official 11v11 match before. Coming primarily from futsal backgrounds, these athletes didn't merely participate; they competed with heart, hitting the post against USVI and scoring their first-ever international goals in their second match.
The tournament garnered attention from soccer media giants like Men in Blazers and influential voices across social media, bringing deserved recognition to an underrepresented community in global athletics. Witnessing a nation's first-ever official soccer match is a rare privilege, something few fans ever experience. The competition, featuring teams from the U.S. Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos, and Ozark FC's U19s, aims to become an annual tradition in Northwest Arkansas, our very own regional international tournament.
Meanwhile, the MLS Next program has launched with impressive momentum in Northwest Arkansas, attracting approximately 100 players per age group from as many as six different states. The program has united former rivals from competing high schools and clubs onto the same teams, creating an intense training environment where hard tackles and competitive spirit drive mutual improvement. Coaches have been pleasantly surprised by the technical ability and tactical awareness of the region's players, suggesting a bright future for soccer development in Northwest Arkansas. Join us next Thursday for another episode of the Pitch to Pro podcast, as we continue exploring the beautiful game's growth in unexpected places.
Welcome to the Stoppage Time edition of the Pitch to Pro podcast. This is a highlight reel of some of the best moments from the show so far, and every other week we will be bringing you a special five to seven minute segment featuring the best stories, tales and moments of the podcast.
Speaker 2:Like there were people from all over the world that traveled in to support the Marshall Islands.
Speaker 3:I mean the men, men and blazers. Did a man a blazers?
Speaker 2:got 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 Cause, like I, I would say I was doing what everyone does and I was doing scrolling, yeah, like some doom 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 super huge thing, or like it's such an underrepresented community in 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 seeing your national team accomplish 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 geckos 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.
Speaker 3:And here's the thing everybody's like dean was a part of their staff as well. Yeah, and they tried to play like you could have easily. Like like hey, we're gonna, you know, sit in the back and just try to hope for something. But no, they tried to play Like you could have easily. Like hey, we're going to. You know, sit in the back and just try to hope for something.
Speaker 3:But no, they tried to play, they hit the post. Yeah, good for them. You know 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, but I don't know that it was ever tied, but they did come back and they scored their first ever goals.
Speaker 2: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 get a PK to kind of bring it back and close to 3-2. 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? So it's just.
Speaker 2: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.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, 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 cacos, marshall islands, the u19s for ozfc, every single one of them coming in, competing, doing so well, representing their countries and their teams, other communities, heads held high, like it was. 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 3:Yeah, so yeah, even if obviously we're not in it anymore like it's going to be awesome, like we're going to tell our kids to continue to go and support and be a part of this Cause. It's this, because it's so awesome to have this here. I mean it's like the Gold Cup, it's like Copa America, you know, like 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? You know.
Speaker 2:So cool. 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, you know they've 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? Uh, 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 and 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 and I was coming from Memphis and I saw two Memphis kids on there. 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 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 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. I think we had probably about eight coaches within each age group. Help us kind of like sort it out this is who we think, this is who we think, and then we kind of moved them around to kind of have them play with each other and then our MLS Next coaches picked 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.
Speaker 3:I was leading kind of some trainings with them in the morning super early before it got crazy hot throughout the summer. And to say that the level surprised me would be an interesting thing, because I was like, oh, it's club soccer. Like I've known it, I've seen, obviously, mls. Next I've seen high level ecls.
Speaker 3: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 year they've been opponents, whether it's opposing high schools or opposing clubs. They've always played against each other and now they're in the same space, getting trainings at a high level, competing against each other. We keep talking about these hard tackles at these games. We see them in training, hard tackles that are trying to make each other better and it's been awesome to see but that was kind of our summer it's like in a meeting sessions getting a better picture of all the players, building relationships with the parents, with them, kind of building the stress Cause. At the end of the day, we're we're a brand new club.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us for this stoppage time special of the pitch to pro podcast. If you've enjoyed the conversation, you can click watch the full episode here. Be sure to tune in next Thursday for a new episode of the Pitch to Pro podcast, the official podcast of Ozark United FC, Available on YouTube, Instagram and everywhere you get your podcasts.